Kuala Gandah Elephant Sactuary

All sqeeky clean, originally uploaded by Selinz.

On Saturday, hubby and I and friends with their kids, went to Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary. We’ve heard so much about it and yearned to see it for ourselves.

We set off early Saturday morning and armed with pack lunch of nasi lemak…. Melayu la kan hehe. We got there at about 11am. It was about an hour and a half’s drive from PJ.

We were really surprised at how well kept the place was. The elephants were kept in a HUGE area surrounded by an electric fence. We could see them walking about, playing with each other… having a good day.

It turned out that activities only starts at around 2pm. So we had a lot of hours to kill. So we decided to drive out to the orang asli village not too far away from the sanctuary.

I’ve never been to an orang asli village before. The village looked very primitive. Their huts were made out of weaved leaves (There must be a term for this but right now I can’t remember what it is! Monday morning block). There was an art center just outside the village where baskets and beaded jewellery, made by the orang asli were sold. You can also donate money if you wish.

When it was almost 2pm, we headed back to the Sanctuary. Did not want to miss anything!

For the activities, the elephants were brought out to the river, where the keepers give them a bath first, cos they are all muddy. Then they are taken to an area where visitors are allowed to feed them. They prepared BIG baskets of fruits consisting of banans, water melons and papayas. Visitors can help themselves to the fruits and feed them to the elephants! So cool. The sanctuary has 6 elephants, 4 adults and 2 babies. They were all Asian elephants.

After feeding time, visitors get to ride them. The ride was short, the Q was much longer  But it was worth the Q I guess cos it was pretty fun.

Then after the elephant ride, visitors get to bathe in the river with the elephants! You also get to ride them and then they will tip the visitors into the river! Looked pretty fun, I did not participate in this one though. Maybe next time.

Ok, check out the pix by clicking on the picture above.

Sorry for the rushed and not so detailed post. Monday blues. Too lazy to think.