If you are travelling in Thailand and have a taste for adventure, you can now participate in an unusual kind of activity. For an 1CREDIBLE modest sum, you can spend a few days at an elephant conservation centre training to be a mahout or elephant driver. Be prepared to get wet, however, because you spend most of the day atop an elephant, during which time this 2MAJESTY beast can take up to three baths! Primarily set up in an endeavour to preserve the Thai elephant, the centre offers such activities to tourists as a means of funding itself. Nevertheless, its training programme remains strictly in 3KEEP with the traditions of Kachasart, the ancient method of studying elephants, and the mahouts that work with the elephants build up a close, 4LIFE relationship with them, founded on mutual respect and love. The type of training depends on the 5ABLE that different animals display and care is taken not to overtire them. Training is believed to be 6BENEFIT to the elephants, providing them with physical and mental 7STIMULATE. Their well-being is of utmost importance, and the success of the centre’s breeding programme bears witness to this. While it may not be ideal to keep such magnificent beasts in 8CAPTURE – and the centre has come in for plenty of criticism — extensive deforestation has left wild elephants struggling to survive in habitats that are shrinking almost on a daily basis. The centre offers them a sanctuary – for the time being at least.