Elephants, Snakes and Bears, Oh My!

In honor of Agong's birthday (I didn't know who he was either until 5 minutes ago) we had another three day weekend.  To celebrate, we took a day trip about 1.5 hours outside of Kuala Lumpur to the Elephant Sanctuary.

The goal of the Elephant Sanctuary is to relocate elephants from areas that have been encroached upon by developers.  Over the last 30+ years they have relocated 500+ elephants.  I was told that there are currently more than 2000 wild elephants in Malaysia!

There are resident elephants at the sanctuary to help with relocation efforts. Additionally, the center looks after orphaned elephants. Visitors are able to feed, ride and bathe the elephants.  Case and the kids were able to participate in all of these activities.

Prior to participating in activities with the elephants, we visited a park called Deerland - just a couple of miles down the road.  There the kids were able to feed deer, hold a snake and pet a bear!  What a day!

Each day the sanctuary only allows 120 people to participate in the activities (the others get to watch).  We were thankful to get the last three passes.  Ezra and I took the spectator passes, but he didn't seem to mind.  He was more interested in the dirt than in the elephants. 

Please note the huge elephants in the background.

Still playing ..

and getting dirtier ..

Those must be some incredible rocks!

The final photos are from our trip to Deerland.

Ella and Adlai were feeding the deer potatoes.

Look at my brave boy!

  

They invited us into the pen and allowed us to pet this bear while he was eating.  I thought that it wasn't a great idea and stayed outside with Ezra.  But, the bear didn't seem to mind.  Now I know why there were signs at the entrance of the park stating "Enter at your own risk."

This is the same bear that my kids were just petting!