Elephant Riding - Pattaya    Share

This place should be ilegal. Elephants should not be rides, if you want to see them look for places where you can see them in a decent protected environment, wash them and look at them not ride them. Animals look drugged and sad , they are in cages. Saddest experience ever I cried the whole time

Great experience. Very cooperative and helpful staff. Love it

We went here unknowingly sold by a local tour operator. Price seemed reasonable - 1400baht for 2adults + 2 young children. Including hotel pick up drop off. This place is just around the corner from southern Pattaya and not as far as the tour operators make it seem. They say it’s far to gain price/value. Could have easily gone by taxi by ourselves for cheaper I think. Upon reaching, we were rushed to taste some dried coconut by an old man at the entrance who was pushy to make us buy there product. We declined. Then they pushed bananas for 100baht to feed the elephant. I didn’t mind but bananas were in a plastic bag. After opening it later, found half of them dried up and black /hard. There are several large tigers and young lions in separate CAGES. A lot of the tigers and leopard were definitely drugged as they slooped for another tourist to take photos with. They rushed us past these tiger cages as they either didnt want us to see or wanted us to pay for seeing them? You pass all these cages and reach the elephant ride area, there appeared to be 4 older elephants and they didn’t seem too happy. Just overworked . The place has made a makeshift up and down track for elephants to walk on around the property passing peoples houses, loads of rubbish and dumped construction material! This is not a park or a sanctuary by any means! It is a makeshift area to house these elephants close to Pattaya to gain visitors! The mahouts were least interested and clearly over their job and had no love for the animal in any way. On the 30 min ride, we were left with such mixed feelings as we definitely knew this was wrong and our money just assisted their cause further but on the other hand our little boys were so excited to see an elephant for he first time. Sad it had to be this way. Halfway down the ride, the mahout asks me if I would be interested to buy any “elephant teeth” As I clearly know ivory trade is banned and illegal in most parts of the world- I clearly said no thanks. He insisted and brought a box of what appeared to be necklaces in ivory etc. I removed my phone quickly and even have video evidence of him pushing ivory sales to me! Wasn’t happy! This place needs to be SHUT DOWN and government of Thailand needs to rescue all these animals. They are not meant to be in 4x4 cages and drugged 24x7 for tourists to take photos. Such a sad place! DO NOT GO HERE! After the ride they even sell video footage for 500baht and photos for 100baht each. They rushed us back to to the taxi so quickly after the ride like they are trying to hide all the abuse! This place goes by several names by local tour operators and they avoid using the real name as they know tourists would have read the reviews! They sell it to you as “elephant safari” “elephant trekking” and other names. I have marked the location of this place for others to be careful off!

ATTENTION! This place abuses their elephants ! Please go to sanctuaries where they treat their elephants well and let them be as free as possible. Elephant’s backs are actually very sensitive and they’re NOT meant for carrying !! This place is still open because of ignorant people that support this animal abuse . Please don’t support them in any way.

DO NOT ever go to a place where they ride the elephants! They ABUSE their elephants! Go only to sanctuaries! The elephants have to go through what the ELEPHANT ABUSE industry calls the SOUL CRUSH where they are forced into a tiny cage they cannot move in and then brutally beaten until they become docile and compliant. DON'T SUPPORT ANIMAL CRUELTY