Ban Taklang Elephant Village in Buriram

Torture animals.

The best place near surin to make friends with some beautiful elephants. Its a big step in the right direction, hopefully it may be the start of an answer. Excellent show worth checking out.

Visit 20th March 2022. I turned around and drove away. For being the Royal animal of Thailand they are not treated so Royal. Chained up with little room to move. Surely build better humane places to house your Royal animal. I have visited other elephant parks in Thailand and they do much better. Its a shame you dont see the many statues of elephants around with leg chains. Then it might convince companies like Chang Beer to donate to fix the problem. I would give 0 stars if I could. No photos - too distressing.

looking at the positive comments, I feel its going to take time to make people understand how bad these shows are for elephants... DO NOT GO THERE

Very abusive to the elephants. Kept chained and hobbled and alone all day. Avoid.

İ see the staff hurt body elephant.😭😠

Hot, dusty, poor environment and I can see the elephants are not happy at all. Let them in the forest.

A nice place to see elephant 🐘

it is big village and Big Elephant show, and have restaurant and many shop for gifts and more.

Great time. Elephant amazing.

The elephants here are retired and rescued elephants, and its lovely to see them up close. We didnt catch a show, as we dont appreciate performing animals, but we did feed them and get a hug. The only downside for us is that the elephants are chained for at least part of the day. Given theres no enclosures, perhaps its a necessity. All fees and tips go to the upkeep of the park and the animals

There are many elephants here, some of which are showing signs of stress and distress.I hadnt witnessed any bad treatment on my visit though one female had her front legs chained so closely together she had great difficulty turning or moving comfortably.The show was the standard selection of movements that are unnatural for these creatures and routines to make the mainly Thai audience laugh. The animals looked well fed and no visible signs of mahout mistreatment were to be seen.

Amazing place, stayed the night in a private cabin. Woke up and went to the corrals where they had a mother and baby being cared for where everyone could visit them. Fed the mother and once she was comfortable with me, fed her baby. Positive lifetime memories. Did not attend the show, did get to take pics with a giant of a male with huge tusks, must have been almost three meters long. Had to keep a distance between us because every time he moved his head those tusks would seem across a very large area that could easily cause someone harm. Believe its one of the kings elephant farm. Heard his white elephants are there out in the jungle living their natural lives with their mahouts keeping them safe from humanity.

Years ago I spent time "volunteering here" and witnessed full animal abuse in the "sanctuary" of the elephant village. Use of bull hooks and tight chains, even with babies. All the elephants in the village were swaying due to poor mental health and we were told that it was them having fun. When we asked why they were kept in such poor conditions we never got a straight answer

do not perpetuate the use and abuse of elephants. your holiday should not warrant the suffering of animals. please do not support these businesses.

Before you even think about visiting this place go and educate yourself as to what happens to these elephants before they can be exploited in this way to make money for the humans. They are taken as babies from the mothers as well, tied and stabbed and beaten until they are broken and will submit to the human ‘owner’ . Then ( for animals that naturally roam over hundreds of miles a day they are chained for literally the rest of their life. Anyone who gives money to help this exploitation it truly heartless. Do not be fooled by sanctuaries that offer rides or elephant painting. It’s a cover for more exploitation. Real sanctuaries have extremely limited human interaction.

horrible place where the elephants are chained and forced to perform obviously because they were trained with the typical Thai method "crush" that involves violence and cruelty. I do not understand how a country can treat its national symbol so badly

Nice place and lots of fun.Twice showtime a day : 10h00 & 14h00

Places like this should be banned, if you are looking to see elephants make the effort and visit some of the beautiful National Parks in Thailand as Khao Yai north of Bangkok or Namtok Huai Yang south of Hua Hin. You as a tourist have the ethical responsibility to push the touristic attractions into a sustainable ones where the animals are free. The experience of watching wild elephants cannot be compare to the sad show you will have in any of this places.

Very sad, all elephants chained to a metre and look like they never move apart from giving rides to tourists. Most are swaying due to hysteria. Very sad to see.

Best thing Ive done in Thailand..The elephants are well looked after and respected.Worth the trip.

Cute cute. Very warmed welcome from local ppl.

Its nice local elephant village in Surin Thailand you can visit here for take a elephant taxi around the park 10 to 15 min. Something but for the tourists they are chargé you around $10 its same price with Thai people , look elephant playing football and painting not very special places but if you like to see elephant closer its not bad to visit and local people here they are friendly

Interesting elephant show.

This is Elephant Village, they do shows here, first show is around 10am and 2pm. The show last around 30-40 minutes long; elephants playing football, painting and playing darts etc. You have the chance to take a ride on the elephant, take some photos with elephants and get close and personal with the elephants.

For anyone even vaguely familiar with elephants and their behaviours, this is a very upsetting place. The animals are abused into performing acts for human delight. The brutality is extremely evident once you look past the surface.I encourage everyone to avoid this. Engaging in this is encouraging animal abuse to the extreme.

Good place for visiting. They claim that they are number one in training elephants. The show was amazing, much better than i expected.

One of its kind tourist attraction. Elephants play soccer and great photo opportunity.

Such a great experience hi-five with elephant!

Really beautiful place. The elephants are really happy. They take very good care of the elephants. You can take a ride on a elephant. There is a show where elephants play football, basketball, paint etc. You can give sugarcane directly to elephant. There are baby elephants and big ones also.

Amazing place! That’s is the original elephant village! Awesome!

Small and quiet elephant village and shows. You could see some elephants besides in the shows. Cheap sugarcane packs to feed the elephants. Friendly staff. The elephants at least could be themselves there

Down to earth experience... extremely affordable, very memorable

I really recommend this elephant village. The elephants seemed to enjoy and were happy friendly and healthy. Easy to find.

Located in Ta Klang Village of Kra Pho sub-district. From the north of the city, go along Highway No. 214 (Surin-Roi Etand turn left at the 36th kilometre to the Ta Klang Village.The villagers are formerly Suay or Kui people who are skilful in rounding up, taming and feeding wild elephants. Most mahouts have to go to round up the elephants at the Cambodia border. Nowadays, although the rounding up decreased because of the political problem, the villagers still feed and tame the elephants for the annual show of the province. They feed elephants like being their friends and children, not like people in the north who feed elephants for working. Travellers who are interested in the elephant show, please contact in advance at Tel. 0-4451-2925, 0-1878-1221 or 0-1977-6304The entrance fee for the Elephant Study Centre is 100 Baht each for foreign tourists and 50/20 Baht for Thai tourists. The elephant ride is 200 Baht for foreigners and 100 Baht for Thais. The ride lasts about 20 minutes. There are two elephant shows daily at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Below there is a map showing the location of the elephant village. It should be noted, that during the period of the annual elephant roundup, you probably won’t find many elephants at this village.Thai people have lived in harmony with elephants as both working partners and friends for a long period of time. Since the old Sukhothai Kingdom during the reign of King Sri-inthratit, up to the present day King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the elephant has been the court animal of the royal families.A survey conducted by the Royal Forestry Department in 1994 showed that 5,548 elephants remained in Thailand. Of this number 1,975 were living within wildlife sanctuaries and national parks National Parks, while 3,573 were domestic elephants. Among the domestic elephants, 1,500 were working in logging camps, while about another 1,000 were dotted all around the country. The main places were domestic elephants are found nowadays in Ban Ta Klang, Krapho Sub-district, Tha Tum District, Surin Province. Here there is a long history and tradition of raising elephants going back several generations, although there are only 180 elephants living in the community. Most of the elephants seen plodding along the streets of Bangkok and those in tourist sites or amusement parks come from this community.Elephants from Ban Ta Klang take part in the Elephant Round-Up in Surin once a year, where many people come year after year for the festivities. The Tourism Authority of Thailand in cooperation with Surin Province, Elephant Conservation and Protection Foundation and other organizations are joining hands in developing and elephant village as a new tourist attraction, with an elephant performance being staged every Saturday between 09.30 - 11.00 am. This will be better for the elephants and the mahouts, as they will no longer have to trudge disconsolately around the smelly cities.Any visit to Thailand will be incomplete without a visit to Ban Ta Klang Elephant village in the province of Surin. The village comprises of people from the ancient tribe of Kui, and they have been rearing these gentle giants for hundreds of years. This area is highly conducive for elephants as it has the plants and grass that elephants like eating. During the Ayutthaya period, the people from the village used to send the elephant feed to the king so that they were not recruited for wars. This was like a form of tax against being drafted.

Good show great elephants

Our mistake. This is a tourist amusement park. Unfortunately the elephants do not roam free and are chained. Wasted our day driving here. Location should be closer to the main road. Our choice we left after seeing the baby elephant chained away from its mother. If you really care for them then you should really care for themMy opinion.

Was there for annual group wedding registration..many elephants

A far remote place. There is an elephant show where elephants of all sizes do alot of tricks. Foreigners had to pay double the amount 100baht. But trainers uses this sharp training stick thing that clearly hurts the elephants, you can see wounds on the back of elephant ears.

Wonderful day out getting up close and personal with these amazing animals.

I enjoyed seeing the elephants up close, however I did not enjoy watching the perform.

Loved the sense of care and passion that the trainers have for the elephants. Probably my favorite experience of my trip to Thailand. I went twice in two weeks. Would recommend to anyone.

Many elephant, kindly people.

This is awesome place that you should visit and go around village.

A must see for everyone!! Elephant shows, rides, etc. Wow, and they paint, too. Fun for the whole family.

Interesting. Low entrance fee. Best to visit with friends from Thailand. Quiet a bit away from Surin. Public transport is not always going there. So, you might lan up, riding on the back of an motor bike... There are also a few shops a cheap local restaurant. Good experience! :-)

Torturing place for elephants. Only there to make money from tourists on cost of the animals. Stay away.

Terrible place where the Elephants are treated very badly! They are kept on very short chains their whole life except for when they have to perform at the circus or get ridden. The spine of an Elephant is not made to carry people on their backs. Do not go there!

Elephants are kept separate one of each other , you can see them swinging their heads which means theyre missing contact with other elephants . Mixed feelings, was happy to see these amazing animals so close but really sad to see them this way .

Amazing place to see stunning get elephants