On Tuesday Ayu and I travelled to Kuala Lumpur via bus - only 28 RM ($8.92USD) each for a 4 hour trip. I love Malaysia.
The next day was spent catching up with Ayu's family. Her cousins graciously let us stay at their place. Thursday we went to see the Elephants! The drive was long because we got lost, but after a lot of searching, asking directions, and fiddling with a GPS navigation we eventually found it. These two little guys greeted us as we walked in - they just finished their bath.
Although the park is free, it wasn't quite what Ayu and I (and her two cousins Mohsein and Efa) had envisioned. Its true, you can feed the elephants, ride them, and go in the water with them, but as you'll see below - the means by which this happens is not what you would expect.
First up is feeding the elephants. Here's me, an elephant, and some very confused girl.
Here's one of the keepers. The elephants are chained up (presumably so they can't attack anyone while they are being fed), but its still sad to see them so. Anyone can feed them, and they have big boxes of fruits specifically for the elephants.
There were about 100 people here - mostly caucasian tourists. The place is only open for a few hours each day and you can only interact with the elephants for about 2 hours of that time . Which is good - they need their time away from the crowds.
These are Ayu's cousins, and we all had a really fun time.
The elephant ride was very short and in a small circle. This is probably because giving 100 people rides is a very long process.
After this was the swimming, but as you can see below it was also pretty strange.
So because it wasn't all that we expected, Ayu and I decided to give the elephants a well-deserved rest and didn't do the riding or the swimming. But feeding them and watching them was certainly fun. On Saturday we returned to Penang with one of Ayu's friends. Overall it was quite a nice couple of days.
The next day was spent catching up with Ayu's family. Her cousins graciously let us stay at their place. Thursday we went to see the Elephants! The drive was long because we got lost, but after a lot of searching, asking directions, and fiddling with a GPS navigation we eventually found it. These two little guys greeted us as we walked in - they just finished their bath.
Although the park is free, it wasn't quite what Ayu and I (and her two cousins Mohsein and Efa) had envisioned. Its true, you can feed the elephants, ride them, and go in the water with them, but as you'll see below - the means by which this happens is not what you would expect. 
First up is feeding the elephants. Here's me, an elephant, and some very confused girl.
Here's one of the keepers. The elephants are chained up (presumably so they can't attack anyone while they are being fed), but its still sad to see them so. Anyone can feed them, and they have big boxes of fruits specifically for the elephants.
There were about 100 people here - mostly caucasian tourists. The place is only open for a few hours each day and you can only interact with the elephants for about 2 hours of that time . Which is good - they need their time away from the crowds.
These are Ayu's cousins, and we all had a really fun time.
The elephant ride was very short and in a small circle. This is probably because giving 100 people rides is a very long process.
After this was the swimming, but as you can see below it was also pretty strange.
So because it wasn't all that we expected, Ayu and I decided to give the elephants a well-deserved rest and didn't do the riding or the swimming. But feeding them and watching them was certainly fun. On Saturday we returned to Penang with one of Ayu's friends. Overall it was quite a nice couple of days.
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