Elephant ride
On our second last day in Chitwan we went on an elephant ride, the most popular excursion. We didn’t get to see much because of the long grass, nevertheless, it was a great experience.
It was amazing to see our elephant, under instruction, clear a path through the jungle, it broke trees like they were twigs. To say it was over crowded was an understatement, as you’ll see from the photos, there were at least 40 elephants, if not more. We were on the elephant for about 2.5hrs and were alone for 1.5, so we felt got value for our money. Our guide tried his best to find some rhinos without luck, we did see plenty of deer and peacocks – if you were a bird watcher, you’d have been in heaven.
 
 
Those elephants are hideously overburdened and the one in the first picture clearly has a badly damaged knee.
Regardless, elephants are wild animals and not meant to be giving rides to selfish tourists. In order to give these rides for your pleasure, they were stolen from their families in the wild, broken (google the term “training crush” if you want to learn) through violence and domination, and continuously threatened with
pain if they do not follow the orders given. Please learn more about the horrors that humans inflict on these wild beasts, and do not participate in such activities ever again. There is no difference between the elephants and the van as far as the way they are being regarded by the people – but elephants are intelligent creatures who feel pain and fear and sadness.