Seven patients, two with drips attached, await daily medical assessments. Five are injured. Two are drug addicts. All are elephants.
The 21-year-old Lampang Elephant Hospital, in a forest near the town of Lampang - 100km from Thailand's number two city, Chiang Mai - is within the grounds of the government-funded Thai Elephant Conservation Centre.
The centre, a major tourist attraction, benefits greatly from foreigners' fascination with elephants.
But drug-addicted elephants? Let me explain. Staff reveal a few patients are addicted to amphetamines and must be weaned off drugs. However, the numbers of such elephants have decreased in recent years.
A small minority of working elephants at remote far-northern logging camps are given amphetamines by heartless employers.
These drugs make them work faster, but they soon succumb to exhaustion or broken limbs caused by falls during frenzied efforts to shift logs.
When such elephants no longer earn their keep, they're abandoned. Rescued and hospitalised, their broken limbs are mended and their drug dependence eliminated.
Most elephants at the hospital don't have drug problems. Nonetheless, their owners dump them when they're hurt or ill.
Recovered domesticated elephants are placed with reliable employers in the logging industry or with trekking companies. Wild elephants are released into the jungle near where they were found.
However, some animals - particularly abandoned but rescued baby elephants - are kept at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre.
About 50 elephants are usually at the centre - out of Thailand's 2700 domesticated elephants and estimated 2000 in the wild.
Six males among the Thai king's 10 sacred "white elephants" are also kept at the centre. Confusingly, they aren't white - and only palace experts can determine whether they qualify as white, or "auspicious", elephants.
Though "white elephant" refers in English to something valuable but useless, its Thai meaning is very different. Sacred in Buddhism, the "white elephant" was formerly a national symbol and is still widely believed to ensure prosperity.
Custom dictates that white elephants must be caught in the wild, aren't allowed to breed and should be presented to the Southeast Asian nation's monarch.
Reminders of elephants are everywhere in Thai society. Even a top-selling beer is called Chang, which means "elephant".
The Thai Elephant Conservation Centre runs mobile clinics providing medical treatment for animals in remote locations.
It also operates a rescue unit to dart and relocate rampaging bull elephants that might otherwise be killed by farmers worried about crop damage.
Large squares of brightly hued paper, drying in the sun, catch my eye. I discover the paper, coloured with paint during manufacturing, is hand-made from elephant dung - of which the centre has plenty.
An adjoining souvenir shop sells this odour-free paper as gift wrap - along with greeting cards and other stationery, unusual mementoes that have visitors happily opening wallets.
I browse among a display of paintings, unaware of a small sign identifying the artists.
"Who painted these?" I ask. An assistant points through a window to the source of what proves to be elephantine art.
Across a grassy expanse, elephant artists are at work. Mahouts (handlers, usually one for an elephant's entire working life) dip brushes in paint for the pachyderms to grip in their trunks.
The result: mostly multi-coloured abstracts. But, with brush guiding from artistic mahouts who move elephants' trunks appropriately, more traditional works are created: flowers in vases and landscapes.
Elsewhere at the centre, elephants are demonstrating to fascinated humans how they use their trunks to roll logs or pick up wood.
Tourists, I notice, are heading towards a river running through the grounds. Elephants are in the water, enjoying daily bathe-and-play sessions.
Cute baby elephants squirt water from their trunks at tourists on the bank. Mahouts use brushes to scrub the animals' tough hides.
A 20-minute ride on an elephant's back along a jungle trail precedes my departure from one of northern Thailand's most memorable tourist diversions.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE: Thai Airways International (1300 651 960, thaiairways.com.au) flies to Thailand, as do Qantas ( 13 13 13, www.qantas.com.au) and Jetstar (13 15 38, jetstar.com). All Asian airlines flying to Australia connect through home hubs.
Low-cost carrier Air Asia X (1 300 760 330, airasia.com) serves Thailand from Australia, via neighbouring Malaysia.
From Bangkok, several airlines have one-hour flights to Chiang Mai - also reached by coach or overnight sleeper train. In Chiang Mai, arrange taxis through hotels for Lampang day trips.
STAYING THERE: Chiang Mai options include basic backpacker dormitories, high-rise five-stars (including links in global and Thai chains, as well as independents), opulent resorts and quirky little luxury hotels.
Lampang, 100km from Chiang Mai, also has a good choice of accommodation in all categories.
PLAYING THERE: In Chiang Mai, visit Doi Suthep - one of Thailand's most revered temples. Best side trip from Chiang Mai: Chiang Rai's government-run Hall of Opium where dioramas highlight opium's role in Thai history. Useful website: thailand.net.au.
*The writer was a guest of the Tourism Authority of Thailand
