Adventure Girls - How to bathe an elephant

My mission in the 2nd episode is to get to know more about elephants!

We drove for about 7hours from Bhuket Mera to Pahang state.

When we arrived at our accommodation it was already pretty late. We settled in in our rooms.  We were sharing the rooms with cockroaches, more gekkos and all other kinds of insects. There was no need to feel lonely! It was quite funny to see Zul, a macho guy from our crew, running out of his room screaming like a baby. He's scared of cockroaches! 

Our hotel for one night...

We started the day with a nice sunrise shot near a waterfall in some forest.

The forest was invested with leeches!!! Half of the crew got them on their body and we didn't even go in the water!

Insects galore, but we got our shot!

Elephant conservation center

I've seen several documentaries on how elephants can suddenly turn cuckoo and attack people. Most of those elephants saw their parents being killed in front of their eyes. Or they got chased away from the place where they live by people...Elephants have an amazing memory so when they grow up something or a certain situation make them remember that terrible experience . That can trigger them to attack their keepers or other people.

This is a rogue elephant. He's separate from other elephants at the center because he might harm them. It's quite sad. The aim at this center is to conserve the elephants, offer them a home and try to re-socialize the rogue elephants.

We had a moment...

Preparing food for the elephants, it's a tough job, an adult elephant eats around 70 kilos of fruits and plants and drinks 70 to 100 liters of water a day!

These baby elephants are kept in an off limits quarantine & treatment area. The keepers knew we had nothing more than good intentions and he arranged for us to meet two baby elephants! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them walking to us, we were very, very lucky!

Talking to Azman "Elephant Man" This lady elephant is 36 years old and she's biiig!

Elephant hug!

She was so sweet...

I have been on an elephant before, but this is the first time without a chair/saddle!

Heading to the river...yes, it's dung that you see in the water... and who is getting in the water?

Yep, it's me who has been given the task to bathe the elephant in dung water.

It was still fun though!

It takes a while to scrub a whole elephant!

This elephant is sooo cool, she picked me up with her trunk and put me on her back again!

Petting my fav elephant!

Yippie! All fresh and clean! Kinda...

I've always liked animals, but after being so close to different kinds of animals, I feel like I'm becoming more and more of an animal friend. I do get really  sad when I think about the fact that a lot of those extincted species will be gone in the (near) future...I'm grateful for the chance to experience all these amazing adventures. I hope anyone who reads this will get the opportunity to do something similar...