Bamboo - Two Countries VolunTour - Thailand & Cambodia

Thailand was fun but in all honesty the elephant experience was why I signed up in the first place. The so called "Sanctuary" was not at all like I had hoped for. Don't get me wrong it was nice to touch an elephant and rub mud on them but the way these animals truly live behind the scenes was unfortunate to see firsthand to say the least. The four elephants residing at Hug "Sanctuary" were all tied to trees most the time when visitors were not on the agenda. Not to mention they ALL had chain collars! Mae Ban even broke off her chain when she was tied to the tree as we were cleaning up around her! Their enclosure was less than an acre when the vicinity itself had over 20 acres of cornfield. We passed more elephant friendly sanctuaries along the same mountain, ones with big open enclosures where the elephants roamed freely without collars. I witnessed the mahouts kicking and slapping our elephants to get them to obey commands. All in all what I expected to be a heart-warming experience turned into a heart-wrenching one. In which it left me wondering why I had bothered to support a place like this in the first place. I guess you truly don't know until you get there because the company makes it look so "Ethical" on the famous World Wide Web. I wrote a comment on BAMBOOs Instagram post on February 14th about my experience and they decided to delete it which I Find even more SHADY. Don't support this elephant experience and do research for REAL SANCTUARIES in Thailand.

I can't tell you how wonderful the experience was for me and at 72 wasa little nervous. I needn't have been as our guides in both countries were exceptional.We saw so much of the elephants feeding washing walking with them. In Cambodia the children were beautiful souls, eager to learn
Included was Angkor Wat such a bonus !!! We went also to Ton le sap lake to the floating village too. Everything was amazing and will live with me forever. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The Elephants very mischievous and grab the bananas. Building for the community meant that gradually all had homes. Angkor Wat was amazing with tuctucs everywhere
Monkeys ran freely around some with their babies
Pub Street I'm Siem Reap is a must. Tonlesap lake is the largest in SE Asia.

The Bamboo organisation was terrible in Bangkok. The saving factor was the elephant encounter which was amazing and the actual tour guide who was a freelancer. All aspects of hotels, travel and meals provided changed on an hourly basis. First being dumped in a strange country and left to find a hotel with only the name and that was no longer the hotel who's info you had been given. A 2nd day travel departure changing, meet time at 8 pm the first evening informing you that the following day you were not leaving at 6.30 am but 2.30 am (result no sleep)Things just got worse from then on when it came to arrangements. No help from management just a threat of how you could be thrown off the tour if you complained. Elephant encounter made things a lot better because this was EXCELLENT. Left out of pocket having to pay for meals and transport that were suppose to be provided .
Cambodia was a complete contrast, well run and amazing hotel. Odd that this part of the trip has changed after we left and they will not be using these staff and this hotel in future (do not understand why, were they too well run and thus not providing as much profit for the company - purely my interpretation of the reason)