Elephants!

Elephants flap their ears when they’re happy.

We learned this during an amazing visit to Patara Elephant Farm outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The elephants at Patara have been “adopted from unsuitable living conditions” and allowed to live and breed in natural family groups. The trainers were celebrating the birth of five calves this year (two or three per year is customary).

Visitors were given woven jackets, similar to what the trainers wore, so that the elephants would accept us as part of the group. We were introduced to a small herd made up of one adult female (cow) and several youngsters (calves).

At a trainer’s command, an elephant “hugged” us, curling its trunk around our bodies, then gave us a squishy and slightly muddy “kiss.” Their foreheads are covered with bristly black hair. It was breath-taking to be so close to such a huge and ancient creature.

We made friends with an elephant by offering finger-length chunks of unpeeled banana and sugar cane, which they slurped down eagerly. Their mouths look four-cornered and unnervingly fleshy, but the trainers assured us that the teeth were far to the back.

Then humans and elephants made their way to the river and bathed in a small pool. We were encouraged to scrub our elephants with brushes and splash them with buckets of water. The elephants seemed to enjoy the bath. Lisa’s elephant was flapping its ears so vigorously that she got slapped upside the head when she bent over to pick up the scrub brush.

In a separate area we visited another cow and her four-week-old calf. Junior wasn’t yet interested in eating these leaves but thought they were a good way to get attention.

The elephants showed us another trick they know.