One late dry-season afternoon in Đắk Lắk, you stand on the red-dirt courtyard of Ánh Dương Eco-Tourism Site, about twenty paces from a bull elephant. He is curling a bundle of young bamboo leaves with his trunk. There is no wooden saddle on his back. No chain around his legs. No one behind him holding a steel hook to push him along.
The mahout standing nearby calls his name softly: Y Dor.
After decades of hard work carrying tourists under the old model, Y Dor is now living an entirely new life: free to roam the forest, bathe in mud and forage by instinct. This is an important piece of the broader effort to improve the welfare of captive elephants in the Central Highlands.
A Peaceful Day In Tune With Nature
At Ánh Dương, Y Dor's daily schedule no longer revolves around tourist check-in times. It runs entirely on his own biological rhythm:
- Early morning: He ambles deep into the protected dipterocarp forest to feed on bamboo leaves, dipterocarp leaves and wild bamboo shoots. Each day, Y Dor consumes 200 to 250 kg of food.
- Mid-morning: He finds a shallow water hole on his own to mud-bathe — the most natural way to protect his skin from sun and parasites.
- Midday: He rests under the canopy of a large tree. The mahout sits silently at a distance, never urging or interfering.
- Afternoon: He returns to feed a second time. This is when guests are guided into the forest to walk in parallel and observe Y Dor from a safe distance of 15–20 paces, under the mahout's supervision.
- Evening: He moves leisurely back to a tree-covered area where he can take shelter from rain and lean against a trunk to sleep.
After one year off carrying tourists, Y Dor's signs of chronic stress (such as constant head-bobbing) have disappeared entirely. His shoulder muscles are less tense; the patches of skin damaged by the old saddle straps have healed and grown a new layer of fine hair.
When The Operator And The Mahouts "Agree To Wait"
The decision to stop all elephant-riding and performance activities at Ánh Dương was not easy. Feeding an elephant that eats 250 kg of leaves a day and paying conservation mahouts requires very real financial resources from the operator. Revenue dropped significantly in the first months of the transition, but the Ánh Dương management and the mahouts accepted this waiting period in exchange for Y Dor's physical and psychological recovery.
"Elephants are not for riding. He is a great friend of the family. Guests only need to stand and watch him walk, watch him bathe — that is enough."
Lonature: A Link In Conscious Tourism
Lonature operates as a small agency in Buôn Ma Thuột. We do not own any elephants — we walk alongside and connect mindful travellers with local partners such as Ánh Dương Eco-Tourism Site.
Every trip with Lonature strictly follows the Slow Travel principle:
- The elephant's eating, bathing and resting times always come first and dictate the guest's schedule.
- No touching, no riding, no bathing with the elephant — keep an absolutely respectful distance.
- A direct share of the revenue flows back to pay the mahout, to cover feed, medicine and the captive-elephant welfare fund in Đắk Lắk.
Đắk Lắk has only about 30 to 40 captive elephants left. When you choose to observe instead of ride, you are sending a tangible flow of money to support the ethical decisions of local operators and mahouts — helping rewrite the future of the last captive elephants in the Central Highlands.
👉 Start your kinder journey by joining the free-elephant observation experience with Lonature.
