Day 6 was our last day in Sukhothai and Bangkok. After a light breakfast, we loaded the mini bus and headed on over to say goodbye to everyone and the elephants we had grown attached to before departing for 'Sukhothai Historical Park' - once the capital of the first Kingdom of Siam in the 13th and 14th centuries. It has a number of fine monuments, illustrating the beginnings of Thai architecture. We rented bikes and toured around the site together and did some final shopping at the local market stalls. Around midday we drove to the 'Sweet Rice Cafe' for our last lunch in Thailand - hot and (very) spicy chicken fried rice. We all enjoyed different aspects of the trip in Thailand, but everyone enjoyed the elephant camp the most I think.
Here is a short list of a few elephant facts we learned:
Here is a short list of a few elephant facts we learned:
- Elephants can sense a tsunami/earthquake one hour before a strike. Their feet, which have five nails, are extremely sensitive.
- They eat for 18 hours a day - their diet is made up of 60% grass root, 30% fruit and 10% minerals. Elephants eat 6% of their own body weight and those who are nursing babies eat about 12%. An average full-sized elephant eats around 200 kilograms of food every day.
- Each year around December, January, February male elephants produce up to 30% more testosterone than normal. This makes them act wildly and can be very dangerous if provoked.
- Elephant mothers produce 20 liters of milk each day for their new born.
- An elephant has the intelligence of a 12 year old human.
- An average Asian elephant weights about 3-5 tons, and is 3 meters high.
- An elephants trunk contains as many as 60,000 muscles which they use for breathing, watering, feeding, touching, dusting, sound production and communication, washing, pinching, grasping, defense and offense.
