Asian elephants are endangered species due to loss of habitat, poaching, mistreatment, and illness related to malnutrition, pollution and from eating street food when they beg on city streets with their impoverished mahouts. The government- supported conservation center has about 70 elephants. Some were born in the center, but many of the elephants have been rescued from abuse, neglect and illness. The Center can only purchase these elephants when adequate funds are available. All the elephants I saw at the center looked healthy and well cared for.

The elephants with tusks are called “tuskers.” With Asian elephants, it’s the males who sometimes have the long, ivory tusks, but many males never grow tusks which reduces their risk of being killed by poachers. This particular tusker is kept apart. You might have noticed his partly unsheathed penis. When ready for sex, we’re told the penis can easily become six feet long.

The homestay is a total immersion experience lasting several days—long enough to leave you transformed by the intimate contact with the elephants.

The male tuskers are put in a stall during the day when they are not ferrying visitors around on their backs. They spend the nights in the forest with the rest of the elephants. We received strict orders not to visit them without a mahout present.

The baby elephant above has been adopted by this 50-year-old female she is with. The baby’s mother was killed by the venomous bite of a cobra while walking in the surrounding mountains with her people. The hill tribe people brought the baby to the Center where they knew he would get the care he needed.

The elephants love being in the water. They get bathed two or three times a day at the Center. The dip in the lake is both refreshing and cleansing. The adoptive mother looks like she’s in bliss, but look at the terror in the eyes of the baby boy.

Our lodging is indoor-outdoor, an architectural style found in much of Asia where the temperature is warm. The walls and ceiling are made of bamboo. The roof is thatched. Without the mosquitos that come around when the sun goes down, the verandah would be the perfect place to put your bed.

This is where we eat our tasty meals each day. The fresh food is cooked in an open-air kitchen just to the side of where we eat.

A few moments after we arrive, we’re given our mahout outfits. In the photo are the eight women participants, plus Jami in the lighter blue shirt, and Sao to the far right—our link to elephant information and overall communication, given her skill with speaking English, her major at college. Since Thailand was never colonized by the Brits, English is not commonly spoken. With lots of smiles and gestures and intuition, the language barrier is not really much of a barrier.

Sao gave each of us a laminated card with the commands most frequently used by the mahouts with their elephants. like “bai bai” for keep walking, or “how” for stop, and “geb bone” for pick up the thing on the ground and give it to the rider—like our shoes that tended to slip off while in the water. There were about twenty different commands we tried to memorize. As you might have guessed, the elephants did not respond when we said the commands—no matter how much we tried to sound firm and imitate some of the Thai tonal sounds. They only responded to their mahout.

Jami assigned me to be with Prathida, The Princess. We made some major eye contact. It was love at first sight. She is called “The Princess” because the king of Thailand’s sister “adopted” Prathida, which means she pays for all the costs of Prathida’s upkeep. The Royal Family are big fans of the Thai elephants. I wore my finest pearl necklace and pearl earrings every day in honor of my princess. I didn’t think she’d mind if I didn’t wear any shoes.

Prathida checks me out.

Prathida sizes me up.

I can hardly believe my good fortune to be able to spend my days at The Center with Prathida. Um, now how am I going to get up there?

Oh my god. I’m way up here and the ground is way down there. I can feel Prathida pinning her ears back to hold my legs in place. She must have felt how wobbly I was with each step she took. She kept her ears pinned back the entire first day. By the second day, she must have sensed I was more secure in my seat and she could go back to flapping her ears.

Here’s Lily Walkover, our star and youngest participant at 30. (I’m the oldest—as you might have guessed) Lily does rock climbing and practices yoga and is remarkably flexible, as you can see. She has been assigned to Jo Jo, a giant male, without tusks, measuring well over three meters in height. The mahout tells Jo Jo to lift up his leg. Lily stands on Jo Jo’s leg, grabs his ear with one hand (we’re told it does not hurt the elephant’s ear) and holds a rope secured around his belly with the other hand, then does the splits to get her left leg up and over, and with a last effort, hoists herself into place. As you can imagine, I could not match this graceful maneuver. Prathida had to kneel very low so I could hoist myself up without doing the splits. When I was tired by the end of the day from mounting and dismounting many times, my mahout simply put his hands on my butt and pushed me up onto Prathida. (Getting older requires radical acceptance of limitations, I’ve learned.)

Lily elegantly sliding down off Jo Jo, the giant.

Prathida and Jo Jo seem to be best friends. When Prathida is near Jo Jo, she entwines her trunk around various parts of Jo Jo’s anatomy. She even wrapped her trunk around Jo Jo’s partially unsheathed penis while the two buddies were standing side by side during a performance for an audience of Thai school children. I think I was the only one who noticed. Elephants are extremely affectionate with each other. They get excited to see their friends, even if it’s only been a few minutes they’ve been apart—much like the way dogs get really excited to see you even though you’ve just been gone a few minutes.

My mahout, John, loves Prathida and Prathida adores John. They have a deep bond. I tell John he has two wives, one of whom is Prathida. John is full of mischief, loves to joke and laugh. We’re a good match. We communicate well, even though John speaks no English except for a few phrases that he loves to use over and over. His favorite phrase is “OH MY GOD,” pronounced slowly, with emphasis on each syllable. He must have heard this phrase many time from his clients over the years. I’m sure I used this phrase over one hundred times during my four-day stay. He also understands the word “HELP.”

All of us are mounted and ready to go, full of barely-contained excitement. Beth Harris is on the right, former neighbor from The Commons, now residing in Hawaii.

We go for a walk to get used to being behind the ears of our elephants, high off the ground.

OH MY GOD! I’m walking around on top of an elephant princess in Thailand. Is this really happening or am I dreaming?

OH MY GOD!! We’re in the water with our elephants. They cool off and get bathed at the same time. They are playful and start a water fight. We all get wet.

OH MY GOD! Prathida just submerged in the water. JOHN, HELP. I think I’m falling off. I can’t feel her body between my legs. At that point, Prathida rolled her body to the side and I fell off. I swam back to her and, with John’s help, got back on. It was quite exciting.

Back on board, thanks to John.

Time to get out. The elephants are sparkling clean and refreshed. And we’re soaking wet and happy beyond words.

At the end of the elephants’ work day, they head off to the forest, their favorite place, where they spend the night.

Heading to the forest for some delicious and nutritious food— with lots of variety to choose from.