We’ve been following and supporting the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand for a long time. So when it turned out our route through Thailand and Malaysia would bring us close to the foundation’s base of operations and that it was possible to stay at their I Love Phants Lodge and do a full-day tour, we didn’t hesitate. Well, maybe a little bit if I’m completely honest. We’re budget travelers and staying at the I Love Phants Lodge was a bit pricier than our usual accommodations. But we didn’t have to think about it for very long. This was something we really wanted to share with our little world traveler. 

Quick overview

The full-day tour includes a guided walking tour and a guided driving tour. The walking tour takes you past the elephant enclosures, the bear area, and into the nocturnal forest and past some of the gibbons. It’s followed by a quick visit to the gift shop and a tasty buffet lunch. After lunch, it’s time for the driving tour, where you see more elephants and many other animals in wildlife open enclosures. This is followed by a visit to the tiger rescue center and a meet and greet with an elephant.

It’s important to note that the WFFT promotes responsible eco-tourism and follows a complete hands-off protocol for anyone but the vets and the handlers. You do get to feed some of the elephants, but no touching or petting. At all other times, you are to stay at least 1 meter away from the animal enclosures, for your own safety and that of the animals. Please be aware that the stories and information shared on the tour can be quite gruesome but for educational purposes, there’s no use in romanticizing the truth. 

Walking tour

Elephants

Our tour started at the enclosure of Pai Lin, one of the oldest elephant residents at the sanctuary. She’s now around 71 years old, which is incredible as in captivity elephants often don’t live past 40. And in the wild elephants only live to about 60. When she came to live at the WFFT sanctuary back in 2007 she was malnourished and generally in poor physical condition. Her back was deformed from carrying a heavy seat with up to 6 tourists at a time and she had spent a long time begging on the streets. Now this amazing lady is physically healthy again, due to the excellent care of the WFFT’s vets. Her dietary needs are met, with grounded food and nutritional supplements. 

Our tour guide Nathalie explains how elephants are domesticated, through the grueling process of Phajaan (which means ‘crushing’ in Thai). We talked about this before in our 2016 post Why you should never ride an elephant, but I’ll explain again. Phajaan is the process of breaking the elephant’s spirit and crushing it until it submits to humans. Elephants would never voluntarily work for people, they’re wild animals. 

So how does this terrible process of elephant crushing work? Baby elephants are taken away from their mothers, who are often killed. If the baby elephant is taken from the wild, it’s not uncommon for the whole herd to be slaughtered as they are very protective of their young. The baby then gets put in a tiny crush cage where its fragile legs are bound by ropes. Then it’s relentlessly beaten with metal tools and bull hooks and deprived of food and water. After weeks and weeks of extremely traumatizing mental and physical torture, a new mahout comes to the scene. He’s the ‘savior’, offering the poor abused baby elephant food and water to gain its trust. Obviously this is just another form of manipulation. All this is done so the elephant can either be used for logging (which was banned in Thailand in 1989) or as a tourist attraction, carrying people around on its back. 

All 23 elephants at WFFT were domesticated through this process when they were babies. And afterward, they were forced to work for humans, often in terrible circumstances. Now these elephants get to live out their lives in peace, in large enclosures of up to 44 acres with natural trees, lakes and grazing areas.

Bears

Next we visit the bears. There are two species of bears native to Thailand, Asian Black Bears and Malayan Sun Bears. The rescue center is home to both. There are a total of 43 bears at the sanctuary. Sun Bears are sometimes also known as dog bears. They’re often poached from the wild and see their mother slaughtered before their eyes. They’re very cute when they are young so people want them as pets. But after a while the cute little bear gets bigger and more aggressive and the owners can’t handle it anymore. In the most positive scenario they get brought to WFFT or another rescue center directly, but many of them suffer terrible abuse in small cages before the owners give them up.

The Asian Black Bears suffer an even worse fate. They’re poached and sold on the black market for their bile or paws. Bear bile is extracted from live bears. It is known to have medicinal properties, but as there are now herbal and synthetic alternatives there’s absolutely no need for the cruelty of bear bile extraction. In the wild Asian Black Bears can live up to 25-30 years, in captivity they’re ‘lucky’ if they reach the age of 10. In a truly horrible way, the bile is extracted from the gall bladder. In the 1980s bear bile farms shot up all around Asia. The bile is ‘harvested’ either through a free drip method, where a hole in the bear’s gall bladder is continuously reopened, through a needle that’s inserted in its gall bladder or through the insertion of a permanent catheter. 

Another terrible practice is bear paw soup. Despite it being illegal all over the world, except in China, it’s also known to be popular in other Asian countries. It’s a truly vile practice, but very profitable. Consuming the paw of the bear supposedly gives the consumer the power and strength of a bear. But especially barbaric is the way it is ‘harvested’. In order to be the most potent, the poor bear’s paw is hacked off while it’s still alive, in front of the consumer. All over Asia raids are done and bear paws are discovered in freezers, among other illegal animal parts that are often used in Chinese medicine. 

Slow lorises

We continue on to the nocturnal forest where we get to see slow lorises. Well, see is a big word. As they are nocturnal they are mostly sleeping during the day but we spotted a few safely tucked away in hiding spots in their enclosures. They appear very cute. This is exactly why they are often kept by humans, either as pets or to be used as photo props. But don’t be fooled by their cuteness. The slow loris is the only primate species with a toxic bite… that can be lethal. For this reason, when they are captured the loris’ teeth are removed and they are kept drugged. Because they are nocturnal they don’t tolerate the light very well and many captive lorises develop eye problems or even blindness. The slow lorises at WFFT get a special diet because they can’t chew anymore. 

Gibbons

The forest is also used to rehabilitate the gibbons. There currently are about 80 gibbons at the center. Gibbons brought to the wildlife rescue center or those rescued by the foundation go through three stages. First, there’s the quarantine stage that all animals at the center go through. Then they go to the rehabilitation forest, where they live in large enclosures, to relearn their natural instinct to stay off the ground and in trees. In order to survive their natural enemy the monitor lizard, they need to be able to stay up high. They’re also introduced to others of their species in the hopes of finding them a partner so they can form a family group (gibbons are monogamous). Once that happens they get their own gibbon island to live on. Gibbons, like all monkeys, can’t swim, so an island is a perfect way to contain them naturally. 

The aim of the WFFT is always to release the animals back into the wild, but unfortunately, it’s been 10 years since a gibbon could successfully be released. Gibbons are often poached illegally. The mothers get shot from the trees and don’t survive and the babies get taken and sold on the black market as pets or photo props. They get treated like humans and either lose or don’t develop their natural instincts. Which is why it’s so hard to release them back into the wild. 

Gift shop and lunch

After about two hours of walking, it’s time to head to the gift shop, where there’s also a shop to buy some cold drinks. Unfortunately, the stop at the gift shop was a bit rushed and we would have liked a bit more time to look around. Now we barely had time to pick some shirts and we didn’t get to fit our little world travelers shirt and it turns out to be too small. Hopefully, the WFFT will get their webshop up and running soon and we can get another shirt for him. 

The included lunch is buffet style and delicious. There were various spicy and non-spicy Thai dishes to choose from and a choice of chicken or vegetarian. With fresh fruit for dessert. We really liked the variety. 

Driving tour

Appreciating the magnitude of WFFT

After lunch, we got on the open tour bus for the driving part of the tour. We drove past Project 1, the very first animal enclosures and then along some of the newer enclosures. You get to appreciate the magnitude of this massive operation. The 80 hectares (almost 2000 acres) of land are home to over 700 animals of 63 different species. Around 100 staff members, mostly volunteers, take care of the animals and the property (which includes the I Love Phants Lodge where we stayed). WFFT has an animal rescue center, an elephant sanctuary, a wildlife hospital and has recently reopened their dog and cat spay clinic located between Hua Hin and Cha Am. 

On the tour, we saw different types of macaques, otters, turtles, lizards, more elephants, bears and gibbons. Our guide Nathalie was very knowledgeable and told us a lot about all the various animals. She was also great at answering all our questions. At some of the enclosures, we got off the bus to get a closer look and more information. Like at the tiger rescue center.

Tiger rescue center

It’s absolutely mind-blowing to realize that there are an estimated 2000 tigers in captivity in Thailand alone, while there are only about 150 left in the wild. The number of captive tigers has rapidly increased in the past years. There’s an active trade in illegal animals, both alive and dead. And sadly, tigers are worth more dead than alive. All parts of the tiger can get sold on the black market for good money. Baby tigers get taken away from their mothers way too soon and used as photo props. Severely sedated of course. The mothers are often used for speed breeding because little tigers grow up and aren’t nearly as cute as the babies. 

Phuket Zoo had been on WFFT’s radar for a while. With the decline in tourism since Covid the zoo couldn’t take care of their tigers and bears anymore. So WFFT launched the biggest tiger rescue in Thailand’s history at the start of 2022. All 11 tigers (and two bears) were brought from Phuket to WFFT in Petchaburi. Over the course of 5 months, from January to June, the foundation managed to both raise the funds and create all the enclosures so the animals could be housed comfortably. 

After the tigers, we got back on the bus to finish up the tour. 

Conclusion

We would recommend the tour at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand to everyone interested in wildlife rescue and ethical wildlife sanctuaries, in particular ethical elephant sanctuaries in Thailand. Suited for families, couples and single travelers alike. The tour is very informative and educational and great value for money. We already knew quite a bit of the background info, but still learned a lot and it was great to see the extent of WFFT’s facilities. 

For guests at the I Love Phants Lodge on WFFT’s grounds there’s a discounted tour price. Staying at the Lodge is definitely a great experience. Read our full review of our stay at the I Love Phants Lodge. 

If you’d like to know more, check out these links:

https://www.wfft.org

https://www.ilovephants.org

https://www.wildlifevolunteer.org 

*please note that we weren’t compensated for this post. We paid for our own tour and it was worth every penny*

The post Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand – full day tour review appeared first on FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com.

The I Love Phants Lodge is a luxury eco-lodge located on the extensive grounds of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. Not only do you get to stay in a very nice room or bungalow, but you also get to see and experience the work of this wonderful foundation up close. Which is exactly why we chose to stay here! How cool to have elephants as your neighbors! You can see them from your room’s balcony and while eating in the restaurant.

We’re budget travelers so such a luxury stay is not something we would normally do. However, since we admire the work WFFT does we felt this was something we could splurge on and support the foundation at the same time. There are plenty of elephant sanctuaries in Thailand that claim to be ethical but really aren’t. Be aware that anyone can claim to have a ‘sanctuary’ as this isn’t a protected name. If you want to visit a truly ethical animal sanctuary in Thailand that also has an elephant hospital and a wild animal rescue center, this is the place to go.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

We’ve been following the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand for several years. They’re an NGO doing amazing work rescuing both captive wild animals and domestic animals in need. Like many other countries, Thailand has its fair share of animal abuse and exploitation. There is a thriving illegal trade in wild animals for pets and medicine, as well as a lot of animal abuse in the tourist industry. We’ve supported this foundation in the past with donations and we were very fortunate that we got to see it for ourselves and even meet the founder, Edwin Wiek.

Location

The I Love Phants Lodge is located on the terrain of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand in the town of Tha Mai Ruak in Petchaburi province. When you make a booking, the personnel at the lodge can arrange a transfer for you from Hua Hin or Cha Am. It takes about 30-40 minutes to get there. We stayed in Cha Am the night before and arranged our own transfer with Grab. I’m not sure if I’d recommend this option, as it wasn’t easy to find a driver. But it did save us a bit of money.

Our room

We chose to stay in a triple mountain view room and got room number 11. It has a king-size bed and a single bed, perfect for our little family. The room offered plenty of space to put our stuff and there was even a little fridge. I’m not sure about the mountain view, but room 11 is right above the restaurant, overlooking the elephant enclosure. The view is fantastic! Sitting on our balcony we could see the elephants wandering around. A wonderful way to start and end your day. When we arrived the fridge was stocked with free water and sodas, which we felt was a very nice touch.

The ensuite bathroom is good sized. It has a shower stall with both a handheld and rain shower, a sink with mirror and a western style toilet. Toilet paper is provided and housekeeping keeps you stocked. In the bathroom you’ll find toiletries such as soap, shower gel, shampoo and even conditioner. The water pressure was quite low, but we’re finding this in many places in Thailand. We had an issue with the water heater the first day (it was either completely cold or really hot), but we mentioned it to the staff and they went to fix it right away. It was a bit better after that.

Family rooms and bungalows

I Love Phants Lodge offers a number of different accommodation options, ranging from a double forest view room to a luxury three-bedroom villa with private pool. For families they have family rooms for 2 adults and 2 kids. The family rooms are quite spacious with a king-size bed and a bunk bed. These rooms also have a couch, a dining table and coffee/tea making facilities. Other options for families are a luxury two or three-bedroom villa that each has its own private pool.

Breakfast included

Included in the room price is a wonderful buffet breakfast with plenty of options. This is served in the restaurant at the main lodge. A full English breakfast with fried and scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages, mushrooms and potatoes, but also little fluffy pancakes, different types of bread, cereals, milk, yoghurt and fresh fruit. And a choice of 3 different juices, or coffee/tea. It’s a great start of the day!

I Love Phants Lodge restaurant

The restaurant has quite an extensive menu and offers both Thai and western dishes for lunch and dinner. Fresh fruit shakes are offered until 17:00. Like everywhere in Thailand the western dishes are more expensive. Ranging from about 120-250 THB the Thai dishes were quite affordable and very tasty. As I don’t like spicy food, I normally always ask. But this one time I forgot and ordered the stirfried mushrooms with Thai Basil… It was very well made, but let’s just say that was a spicy lesson I won’t soon forget.

Swimming pool

Apart from having the elephants as our neighbors, the swimming pool was our son’s favorite place. And to be quite honest ours too as it was HOT when we were there mid-February. Apparently, summer started early this year. After doing the full-day tour seeing some of the work of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, it was an absolute pleasure to be able to jump in the pool to cool off. From the pool you have an awesome view of the elephant enclosure. How cool to see the elephants wandering around while you’re swimming.

Discount on tours

You don’t have to stay at the Lodge to visit the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. You can do a half or a full-day tour as a day trip. But one of the perks of staying at the lodge, apart from the lovely accommodations, the great breakfast, the swimming pool and sleeping next to the elephant enclosure, is a considerable discount on the tours. We were really looking forward to learning more about WFFT and our tour guide Nathalie didn’t disappoint. It was a great experience. We’ve learned a lot and our little world traveler is more determined than ever to support the amazing work the foundation is doing.

Our verdict

For us this definitely was a once-in-a-lifetime experience (although we hope to be back someday and possibly even volunteer). Teaching the next generation about wildlife rescue, wildlife conservation and ethical animal encounters is vital if we want to make sure there will be any wildlife left by the time they grow up, or by the time they themselves have kids. Every donation counts for an NGO like WFFT and staying at the lodge and doing a tour is one way to support them. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the lodge and would recommend it to anyone.

If you’d like to know more, check out these links:

https://www.wfft.org
https://www.ilovephants.org
https://www.wildlifevolunteer.org

*please note that we weren’t sponsored for this post. We paid for our own stay and it was worth every penny*

The post I Love Phants Lodge review appeared first on FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com.

The Buddhist temple is officially named Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Yanasampanno, but is better known as the Thai Tiger Temple. After many years of protest from wildlife activists and temple critics from around the world, they finally gave in.

The effort, led by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, is supposedly no longer obstructed by the tiger temple and its staff. For years the temple is being accused of abuse and trafficking of big cats for the Chinese market. Tourists from all over the world visited the temple to take pictures with these magnificent animals. The temple has been accused of drugging the tigers to keep them quiet. Anyone can imagine that otherwise these wild animals would never sit for tourists to take their pictures. There are many movies on YouTube where the tigers can be seen almost falling over because of the drugs. For every animal lover around the world these are heartbreaking movies to watch.

Edwin Wiek, the founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, has been calling for the tigers removal for many years. He was on the scene for yesterday’s operation to take away the tigers. He covered the events via Twitter updates. The updates have been given the hashtag: #TigerTempleCloseDown. More updates at #TigerTempleTakeDown and #TigerTemple

We are happy that the tigers from the Tiger Temple will finally be free. And we applaud the Thai Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation for their effort to bring a halt to the mistreating of these beautiful animals. Hopefully there will be more of these actions for other wildlife in Thailand. The elephants and many other animals in Thailand are still being mistreated for the tourism industry.

Unbelievably tourists were still entering the Tiger Temple while animal rescuers were taking away some of the tigers. This goes to show how ignorant some people are. It’s important to better educate people worldwide about what happens to animals in these kinds of tourist traps. It all starts with teaching our kids to respect nature and all its beautiful animals.

We support all efforts in stopping these cruelties against any wildlife anywhere in the world.

UPDATE: 40 Tiger cubs bodies found in freezer of Tiger Temple

Today, June 1, 2016, is a sad day for the tigers. Rescue workers have found dead 40 tiger cubs in a freezer in the temple grounds. Why they were kept there nobody knows. Most likely they were meant for the Chinees ‘medicine’ market. There were also other body parts found, said Tom Taylor from Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who was apparently there when they made the discovery.

The post Thai Tiger Temple takedown appeared first on FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com.

For parents with young kids, the big question for New Year’s Eve is always ‘Do we let the little ones sleep, or do we wake them?’ For a second we considered letting our little world traveler sleep, but we decided to be a little bit selfish this year and wake him up so the three of us could find out what New Year’s Eve in Bangkok was like. Our little world traveler’s first New Year we spend with friends in Holland, his second New Year we were with friends in Egypt and this year it was just the three of us in Bangkok.

Would you rather celebrate New Year’s Eve in Thailand on one of the beaches in the south or surrounded by the amazing green hills in the north? Check out this family-friendly beach in Phuket and this post about spending three days in Pai. Or, if you’ve already experienced New Year’s Eve in Thailand, why not try any of these other amazing places to celebrate New Year’s Eve?

Why did we choose Bangkok?

Well, that’s an easy question. We love Thailand and Bangkok is a fantastic city! We love traveling in Thailand and Bangkok always feels a bit like coming home. Busy as it is, family-friendly may not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking about Thailand’s capital. But you’d be surprised about the sheer amount of things to do with kids in Bangkok. There’s also a number of great day trips you can do from Bangkok with kids.

Where to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Bangkok?

It’s easy to find info about celebrating New Year’s Eve in Bangkok. Lots of information online about all kinds of parties in the coolest rooftop bars and big clubs. But absolutely nothing about where to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Thailand’s capital with a child. Not too much info about fireworks either. Then we discovered that there was supposed to be a fireworks show over Wat Arun. So we decided to go to the riverfront near Wat Pho with our fingers crossed that we’d be able to see it.

Like any other day

The last day of the year we really didn’t do anything special. There are a lot of fun things to do in Bangkok, but we decided to take it slow this day. We knew we’d be waking him to go outside later in the evening. Therefore our priority was to make sure our little world traveler did an early nap and we had an early dinner so he could get some sleep before we woke him.

Nice vibe during the day and early evening

The day went remarkably well. It was nice and busy in the streets when we went outside after his nap. We felt really happy to be in our favorite city and our little world traveler was very happy and cheerful as well. After our early dinner, we walked to Khaosan Road to see what was happening there. It was already really crowded, with a DJ spinning tunes (the Thai way, so quite loud) and a big clock counting down the hours until 2016.

Fairytale lights in the streets of Bangkok

We walked around a little bit before returning to our guesthouse. We specifically chose Erewan House on Soi Rhambuttri because of the location near Khaosan (click here for more ideas of where to stay in Bangkok). The whole area around the democracy monument was lit up with thousands of little lights. It was really pretty. Of course, we had to take some pictures! We went home early and were lucky that our little world traveler decided to cooperate that night and went to sleep without a fight around 20:00. He was a bit grumpy when we woke him up at 22:30 but quickly became his cheerful self again once we were outside.

Large crowd heading to Chao Phraya riverfront

There were a lot of people in the streets and there was a good vibe. As decided before we headed to the riverfront near the King’s Palace and Wat Pho. We took it easy and stopped for a drink along the way. Our little guy loved all the pretty lights. With maneuvering around all the people also going in that direction it took us about an hour to get there. Big banners shouting ‘Countdown 2016’ told us we were in the right place.

Waiting for the fireworks

Again we were lucky with our little world traveler. In order to see the fireworks, we had to get close to the river bank and wait for about 25 minutes in a huge crowd. Fortunately he didn’t mind. He was happily sitting in the carrier on my back, watching people and pointing things out to us. Finally, the clock on the big screens showed it was time to count down the last 10 seconds of 2015! 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… BANG! Lots of really loud and beautiful fireworks, exactly as we had hoped Our little man was a bit scared and first, but once we started pointing out the colors and the amazing lights in the sky he really liked it.

Crowded Khoasan Road

Since there wasn’t too much going on besides the fireworks, we decided to head back. Our little guy was remarkably cheerful for the late hour. We did a quick detour to Khaosan Road and even entered the street a few meters, but then decided not to go further. It was crazy busy and very loud. Would have been fun if it had been just the two of us, but not with our little man. We didn’t mind though, the evening already went so much better than we could have ever hoped for.

Late night pancakes!

So we walked back to Soi Rambuttri and our guesthouse. On the way we stopped to get a banana pancake. Being up so late makes you hungry! Actually, simply walking around in this area makes you hungry, there are food stalls everywhere! Even though it was already past 1am, our little world traveler wasn’t complaining and had some pancake too.

A night to remember…

Again, our little world traveler proved us proud. By 02:00 he was back in his bed. He went to bed without fussing and slept until 09:00! Lucky us! We didn’t get to party like we would have before our son was born, but we still had a really good night and got to experience the crowds and the cheerfulness of a New Year’s Eve in a big city. For us New Years Eve 2016 is definitely one to remember! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Traveling with kids is different from traveling as a couple, but this trip has shown us again and again that so much more is possible than we originally thought.

The post New Year’s Eve in Bangkok… with a toddler appeared first on FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com.