Having Elephant Mud Fun At The Bali Zoo

My birthday is basically my favorite day of the year. I’m pretty much always treated well by Stephen but on my birthday, I’m the absolute queen.

This year I had requested some sort of animal experience (shocking, I know), and happened to hint quite strongly at the opportunity to give elephants a mud bath seeing as we’d be in Bali.

The day finally came and I was told to pack a number of things but no clues were given as to our destination.

While waiting for our taxi (that can be arranged through the zoo when you book your tickets) I heard the elusive words “Bali Zoo”. I had hopes but I tried not to get too excited since I wasn’t 100% sure and I didn’t want to have any disappointment in case the Elephant Mud Fun experience wasn’t on the agenda.

Stephen confirmed once we were in the car that yes, indeed, we were going to be in the mud with elephants in the afternoon. Included in our Elephant Mud Fun experience were tickets to the Bali Zoo, travel to and from the zoo, the actual elephant experience and then showers and lunch afterwards.

When we arrived at the zoo we were told the experience started at 2pm. We therefore had two hours before then to look around the zoo at the other animals.

The Bali Zoo’s Other Animals

The first stop was to feed some deer. It wasn’t expensive to get some vegetation for them so we splashed out.

Here’s a few of the wonderful critters we saw.

To get to the Elephant Mud Fun experience (and some other animal experiences), you take a tram from one area of the zoo to the other – there’s a lot of construction going on.

There were fewer animals on the other side, but those that were there were pretty special. Plus they have a large observation tour and event space with a waterfall and glass-floored walkway.

These elephants were out as part of another experience where you ride on an elephant around a path and through the water. This wasn’t quite the experience we wanted, so we just took a few pictures and got excited for our own Elephant Mud Fun.

The orangutan was out having finished a “Breakfast with an Orangutan” experience. We were fortunate to catch her having a little relax time with some snacks in the shade.

One thing we loved about the Bali Zoo is that unless the animals needed to be enclosed (like lions, tigers and bears – oh my!) the rest were very close and safely accessible. This made the experience of the smaller zoo (than we’re accustomed to) very enjoyable. Overall, the enclosures were habitat style and they’re working on a new area – the Savannah – to be finished in the next year or two.

The Elephant Mud Fun Experience

It was finally almost 2pm, so we headed to the meeting place for the Elephant Mud Fun experience. There are 13 elephants at the Bali Zoo and we were told we’d be doing our experience with one of two, with 28 other people.

We had a mostly positive experience. We were pleasantly surprised by how long we got to spend with the elephants, the accommodations of lockers, showers and towels and the mahouts and their treatment of the elephants. It wasn’t perfect though, so I’ll put things we would have preferred to be different at the end; overall though we left with a beautiful memory and experience.

We arrived at the meeting place and were guided down promptly at 2pm, through the spa and villas on site, to the area outside the changing rooms. We were met with tea, coffee, water and light snacks. My favorite was the brown sugar coconut treat wrapped in banana leaves. I’m not much of a coconut fan, but this was really good and worth a try.

Then you’re led to the changing rooms, provided with your own locker key for either the ladies or men’s locker rooms. Once you have most of your items put away (except for your camera), you’re given the opportunity to help chop food for feeding the elephants. Not too many people seemed interested in participating but I wanted to experience all.the.things. so I gladly jumped right in.

Once the food is prepared, you head towards the Elephant Mud Fun enclosure. There were two elephants – Annie and Hattie (I thought her name was Happy the whole time; I must have been projecting my feelings onto her). Our group of 30 was split into two groups, 15 per elephant. We were glad to have the group we did. They felt a little more relaxed, maybe a bit older, and didn’t have as many “only here for the ‘Gram” style of photographers.

First you get to feed the elephants their snacks and take solo and group pictures. Someone mentioned kissing the elephants; I know of only one other gentleman in our group that did, but we jumped all over that opportunity. Frankly, between selfies with street dogs, becoming a jungle gym for a monkey and kissing elephants, it’s a little surprising I didn’t come back from Bali with an extra critter or two of my own in my gut or elsewhere.

At this point you’re asked to put all your cameras, phones and GoPros into a plastic tub to be retrieved at the end of the experience. We knew this was coming (from an earlier discussion near the locker room), but we were no less disappointed but more on that later. So, sans photography equipment, we headed into the first of the two ponds.

You’re instructed to cover yourself in mud to help keep the elephant flies away (I’m now wondering just how prolific the elephant fly really is, or if the mud just really did its job!). I took this very seriously and made sure that hubs was covered appropriately too. Side note: it backfired and hubs also got me, but ended up getting it on my lips and it ended up in my mouth some.

Once we were covered in mud ourselves, they brought Hattie and Annie into the pond, where Hattie promptly peed and pooped.

Yup, not only were we covered in mud but also elephant excrement (to be honest, I figured that was the case anyway and elephants just eat fruit, grass and drink water, so I wasn’t too concerned about the experience). I’m not sure if Hattie is trained to do that to make us all react, or if it’s just how she was feeling on the day.

Elephants naturally stay standing quite often because of how large they are. They’re decent swimmers and don’t mind being in deeper water, but sitting and lying down are both trained behaviors by the Mahouts at the Bali Zoo. As far as we could see, being up so close, Hattie seemed to be in excellent condition and was only enticed to move with snacks and verbal commands.

We got down to it and started piling the mud on, posing for some pictures and taking in the fact that we were indeed in a pond, in Bali, with an elephant. Every so often someone would remind us of this fact as it occurred to us and we’d all have a moment of appreciation once again for this amazing opportunity.

Once the mud is fully rubbed all over the elephants (and ourselves), it’s time for a shower and brush. Hattie and Annie were walked over to the giant showers and we were given large brushes and encouraged to really scrub. With her thick skin, Hattie wouldn’t feel much. I did notice, when getting in for pictures and pets, that Hattie’s skin behind her ears on her neck is relatively softer than say the skin on her back, but it’s still very rough and tough.

After the elephants are clean and scrubbed, it’s back in the other pond. As I mentioned, elephants like deeper water, so this pond was waist deep rather than ankle deep like the previous pond. There we splashed Hattie, Annie and each other and got the remaining mud off of everyone.

Finally, the elephant part of the Elephant Mud Fun was coming to a close. We got out and had a drink by the ponds while Hattie stuck around for a few more photos, and – more likely – a coconut or two when those of us who were finished having them to drink wanted to share them with her.

Once more we headed back to the elephant showers for one final pet and photo before heading back to shower ourselves, in the people showers provided in the locker rooms.

Once we showered and changed, it was time for the lunch that was included in the ticket price. It was a delicious buffet and there were 2 for 1 drink specials. I enjoyed two of the “Mud Madness” cocktails – it was my birthday after all!

During this time, a couple of young people asked if we’d like to see the elephants by the river for a celebration. We thought they said for “Elephant Work Day.” Since then we’ve figured out that it was something infinitely cooler that we’re sad we missed out on in the end. They said if we wanted to see that, to come with them at the end of the meal. We were all in – yes, for sure!

Towards the end of the meal we hopped up to see our photos. We knew that we’d be buying them since we hadn’t been able to have our cameras with us during the experience, but this is where our experience turned sour. We wanted to get our photos so we could still go with the young people over the elephant celebration by the river. We chose our photos and asked if we could pick them up after; we were told no, but it would only take 6 minutes to print them. Sadly, 22 minutes later, our photos were ready and we tried to get to the elephant celebration at the river, only be told it was too late to join them.

We trekked up to the exit (without any guidance) and headed out of the zoo for the transportation waiting to take us back to our hotel. We found out later that evening on Facebook that it was “World Elephant Day” and that the Bali Zoo had a special celebration for all the elephants by the river to celebrate it that day. Double punch to the gut, we missed something cool and hadn’t realized ALL DAY that it was World Elephant Day. (*insert face palms here*).

Thankfully, our hotel ended the evening on a high for us with an elephant towel animal for my birthday!

The Good and the Bad

The good stuff from the Elephant Mud Fun experience

• The price was high for tickets (~100 USD per person including transport), but once you figured out that lunch was more than tea, the zoo had better animal experiences than you anticipated and you got way more elephant time then expected, it was worth it.
• The lunch was delicious.
• The staff were friendly and helpful.
• The photos were beautiful memories.
• Having to give up our cameras for the majority of the experience meant that we were better able to “truly be there”, instead of worrying about getting photos the entire time.
• The lockers, locker rooms and towels were great (albeit a bit small for as many people as were in our group).
• The Elephant Mud Fun experience overall was excellent. Getting lots of time with the elephants in a variety of settings made it feel even longer than it was. The mud, giant showers, brushes and splash time were all uniquely amazing.

The bad stuff from the Elephant Mud Fun experience

I hesitate to say “bad”, but these were definitely low points in an otherwise awesome day.

• Lunch – It’s not clear when you arrive that the tea provided isn’t the lunch, so we were disappointed thinking we’d done something wrong with the vouchers we’d been given and the included lunch in our ticket price. Just some clarification on that would’ve been helpful in making sure guests know what to expect. It turned out fine in the end, but we were really disappointed and confused at first.
• Group size – The groups were still pretty large. You need to be proactive to get your turns with the elephants and put yourself out there to get the fullest experience. Stephen thought the experience was a little more intimate so he was a little disappointed, but then he also was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much longer with the elephants than he anticipated.
• Cameras – You can’t take your cameras or even GoPros with you into the water with the elephants. The reason given is for “safety of your expensive devices and elephant safety”; however, you’re allowed to have these devices with the elephants before and after. It therefore felt like this was so you’d have to buy the pictures. Again, I’m not against buying pictures, but once we found out the cost options it was pretty expensive at the end of an already expensive day. I can understand nothing handheld, but it seems to me that GoPros on harnesses might be considered in the future – there were only 2 out of 30 of us with them so it’s not like they would have lost a lot of photo revenue.
• The price of photos – There are 3 packages (and I had to ask about the 3rd and “cheapest” option) and none of them are digital-only. You HAVE to buy printed photos. To get 8 printed photos and our 66 digital copies, it was 1.2M IDR which is ~$85. The other two are 10 and 14 photos plus digitals for 1.5M and 1.4M IDR respectively. They might make more money with a few more options – including digital only – by selling more photos overall and cutting down on printing costs.
• Missing photos – We also weren’t given the opportunity to buy any other photos from our wrist bands that had been taken as we’d walked around the zoo. I didn’t necessarily need them but when you’re already getting some, you might as well look, right!?
• Some other deals were made – We tried to help a few groups who we thought couldn’t afford the photos, had forgotten their wallets, etc. It turned out that one couple was able to take their digital-only card and pay later, avoiding the printed photos altogether. The other group (of 5 people), offered the photographer/staff $50 USD for the digital photos only with a sob story about having spent all their money and it being their last day. While I appreciate that if both those situations were true and had happened to me I’d have appreciated the help, but it felt wrong knowing how much we paid to get our photos.
• World Elephant Day celebration – Missing the World Elephant Day celebration experience by the river was the most heart-wrenching part. We were under the impression that we could join after our photos were printed. The biggest question that plagued us, WHY would you not allow for guests to know that printing and the celebration were happening at the same time (Hubs would’ve had me go on to the elephants and waited for the photos since it was my special day) and that they had to choose one or the other before it was too late? There was also not a loud announcement that the elephant group was leaving for the river which would’ve helped as well in the decision-making process. Especially when the zoo clearly want people to spend another $100 to get photos in the first place.
• Length of time getting photos – The whole photo process and the end of your experience could do with a review and some better coordination.

Video

Here’s a video taken with my GoPro during the parts of the Elephant Mud Fun experience where I was allowed to wear it.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the Elephant Mud Fun experience at the Bali Zoo was an amazing experience and I’m so glad I got to have it. I decided in the evening that to compare my experience without the river celebration was only going to cloud my memory of an otherwise amazing day. I’m so glad the Bali Zoo offers this experience, but I’d caution you to prepare for the photos being considerably more expensive than expected and that you’re not allowed to keep your own cameras with you throughout the experience. Our Mahout, Madde, was really great, knowledgeable and friendly. He was definitely a bright spot in the day with Hattie and Annie.

Bali Trip Report

You can check out all our posts from our 15th anniversary trip to Bali below:

• We’re Going To Bali For 10 Nights For (Almost) Free – Here’s How
• Flight Antics On The Way To Bali – Here’s What Happened
• Flight Review: Cathay Pacific Economy – Washington Dulles (IAD) To Hong Kong (HKG)
• Review: Cathay Pacific The Pier Business Class Lounge, Hong Kong Airport
• 12 Fun Things To Do In Bali (& 1 To Avoid)
• Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Bali
• Hiring A Driver In Bali – Is It Worth It?
• Having Elephant Mud Fun At The Bali Zoo
• Flight Review: Garuda Indonesia Economy – Denpasar (DPS) To Tokyo Narita (NRT)
• Flight Review: Delta Economy – Tokyo Narita (NRT) To Atlanta (ATL)