Elephant Nature Park: Thoughts

On Saturday, we departed from the hotel and headed up north to the Elephant Nature Park (or ENP). I had an excited feeling in my stomach, and I thought it would be so strange to see so many elephants in one area and treat them how you would to, say, horses. I've only seen 1 or 2 elephants together in a zoo. At ENP, there were 64 elephants! Not only that, but over 400 dogs, almost 200 cats, cows, and buffalos! The Elephant Nature Park was one of the highlights of the trip by far. The elephants were so cute, (especially the babies!), and after 1 day of being there, 64 elephants roaming around kind of seemed normal. We were especially lucky, because the founder of ENP, Lek, only came to talk once a week, and that happened to be the day we were there! Lek had a whole 2 hour presentation set up for us, and told us at the start that this might be too sad for people to watch. I now know why she said that, because the presentation was quite sad. She told us all about how ENP started, and how badly the elephants had been treated. Most of the elephants at ENP have physical or mental injuries. Her speech was really moving, and I could've listened to her for hours. She was a real hero and never gave up on saving the elephants. I really, really enjoyed Elephant Nature Park, and Lek's speech made it even better. I got really attached to the elephants, and it was sad to leave. It's so sad that people treat these animals so badly, and I'm glad ENP helps save them.