Krabi Elephant Sanctuary

My day at the Krabi Elephant Sanctuary was probably one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. The people who run the sanctuary are amazing, and the animals are just beautiful.

Unlike other 'sanctuaries' they do not allow tourists to ride the elephants; instead you feed them with sugar cane and fruit cocktail, before giving them a good scrub in the bath.

The Krabi Elephant Sanctuary is a safe haven for retired working elephants and rescue animals who have been abused, overworked or mistreated. Many of them used to working in logging, fetching and carrying felled trees under the swealtering Southeast Asian sun.

As friendly as these animals are, they're still enormous lumbering beasts, so you have to be careful feeding them. A slight mis-step and they could easily wrench your arm off like it was a dry twig.

It was really enjoyable watching them bathe in the mud-pits. I'd swear they were smiling; especially after slinging a few pints of muck at the gawking tourists.

The half-day experience was only about £50 per person, which is incredible value, and you can see that all the money goes straight back into building a better, safer environment for the animals.

It was important to us that we saw the elephants in an ethically-run park, where the animals were not exploited, and were well looked-after.

If you're looking for a lovely experience where you get up-close and personal and feed, touch and wash the elephants, I can't recommend this enough.

These photographs were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and the extraordinary Canon 35 mm f/1.4 L II USM .