Elephant love to bathe in water and play in the mud

Elephants love to bathe in water and play in the mud either on their own or with each other. To do this, they need space to splash, roll around, submerge, and cover themselves in mud.
African bush elephant, (Loxodonta Africana) taking a bath in muddy water to cool down and to get rid of parasites when the mud dries, by scratching itself against tree trunks.

Elephants love to swim, cool off, frolic and splash in the water and then to cover themselves with thick luscious mud. ... As we have grown over the years we continued with elephant bathing.

While bathing elephants itself isn't harmful, it's the process to get the elephants to go against their natural instinct to avoid humans that's often unethical. That's why truly ethical sanctuaries usually have an observe rather than disturb approach. This makes sense if you think about it.

Although elephants are large and a human is a small per cent of their body weight, elephants are not physically designed to carry people and a howdah (a type of saddle) on their back. You might see many articles that say riding elephants does not hurt the elephants. However, this is false

Tails: Just like a dog, when an elephant's tail is swishing from side to side swatting away flies, it is happy. ... This is exactly the same for elephants. If an elephant approaches you with lazy, almost half closed eyes and its tailing swishing slowly from side to side, it is a good sign this animal is very relaxed.

Elephants are highly sensitive and caring animals, much like humans. If a baby elephant cries, the herd will touch and caress the baby with their trunks to soothe it.