Bathing with elephants

Before we started to this day with the elephants, I was quite sceptical. Would it be a tourist trap, where the animals are badly treated and where the visitors see the animals only through fences and sit for 15 minutes on a stupid bench untied to the elephant...and it was absolutly different...  
When we came there, first we had to put on blue worker dresses - so our clothes stayed clean and the elephants are less stressed by so many different colors and shapes of people. Than we had about half an hour of explanation about the camp, their aim is to help old and unwanted elephants, nurse and study them.
Than in pairs of two they gave us an elephant and his mahout. we did everything with the elephant, feeding it, cleaning ist, riding directly at the elephants back and even tried to learn some of the training words. It was so much fun and I never felt exploiting the animal.
To finish the day, I even went swimming on the back of the elephant!