Well, this was another moment we'd really been looking forward to. We first heard about the Elephant Nature Park ("ENP") from Auntie Mellie and Uncle Brian who'd done a day trip there a couple of years back. They in turn heard about it from her cousin, who had spent several weeks volunteering there. ENP is one of those special places started by an amazing person that you read about in National Geographic or see on a BBC documentary. Based on what we'd read, we'd already changed our behaviour towards elephants, and animals used in the tourist industry in general, on our trip so far. There were plenty of opportunities to ride elephants in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, but we had declined.
ENP was founded by Lek Chailert in 1996 and their goal is to provide a sanctuary for distressed elephants from all over the country and her foundation has grown to include other developments in Cambodia and Myanmar. Lek grew up in one of the indigenous tribal villages in Thailand. She grew up going into the jungle with her grandfather, learning about the jungle and the beauty of animals. When she was young they rescued an orphaned elephant and cared for it as they grew up. She is now a global speaker for elephants and leads the charge for changing the bad practices by the logging, tourism and religious industries. We sure hoped we would get a chance to meet Lek, but we'd heard she is so busy that she is only at the camp once a week.
When we got picked up, we met our guide Tong, a soft spoken big Thai guy who would be our guide. We then picked up a Dutch double and lone young Canadian woman who would form our seven person group. On the hour and a half drive up, we watched a safety video on the park, then a documentary that had been made by some American company that was pretty poorly done in retrospect. Still, it served its purpose to get everyone pumped up about what lay ahead.
When we got near the park, we saw a bunch of other elephant experience companies, including a five star resort that had elephants on site. Most of these places were trekking companies that offered varying lengths of elephant rides. Some of them were bareback rides, but most had the heavy carriage strapped to the backs of their animals with a mahout (elephant driver/care giver) on their necks and one or two tourists on the carriage. Beth and I rode elephants in '97, but there just wasn't that much information (ie the Internet!) out there about the damage that is done to elephants in order to train them to fear humans enough that they would work for them - whether for tourism or logging or whatever.
The park is very zen - you could feel the vibe as soon as you came up the main drive. Tong gathered us up and gave us very little direction - just the next step and meeting time. Our first task was the morning feed of some of the "ladies". We would later learn that the females were the majority of the population - 62 of 65 adults were female. This was because the males do not stay with the females in the wild - just stopping in to breed, then taking off. The males in the park had to be separated (even from each other) as they had just one thing on their mind. They could cause quite a bit of damage if left uncontained.
Our first encounter was with Lucky, a blind middle aged female that was very gentle. We stayed at trunk's length and placed small watermelons on the huge elephant's multi functional trunk. The trunk is amazing - it has no bones and fifty thousand muscles and is used for eating, smelling, slapping on the ground, washing, peeling, flipping dirt on their back and much more. Lucky, unfortunately, was blinded by hi former owners. They used slingshots to damage her eyes when she wouldn't listen, rendering her almost useless, at which point the men used metal hooks and small daggers to steer her.
It was a huge privilege to be so close. We were still at the "cautious fear" stage at being so close to them, but it was also an amazing feeling.
Tong took us on a stroll through the the fields and over to the infirmary. I saw the board below that detailed the current cases on the full time, American volunteer veterinarian's plate. She had her work cut out for her - the physical ailments can be pretty severe from recent rescues - cuts, abrasions, broken bones (often from being hit by a car), foot problems from traps or mines - you name it. Mostly at the hands of humans. However, the physical problems are easier to overcome than the psychological and emotional problems that many suffer from after years and years of torture, abuse and extreme confinement.
We went back into the field, and suddenly we were in front of a group of three grandmothers - including one that was 80 years old! We slowly approached at the beckoning of the mahout in charge, and were allowed to touch them. Amazing. To touch a 2000 kilogram animal that is standing right next to you with the ability to pretty easily snuff out your life is quite the feeling.
These three ladies hang out with each other all day long. Elephants are such social animals, we were already beginning to see differences in personality and different looks in their eyes.
The safest time to touch any of the animals was when they were being fed (which was often - they eat around 10% of their body weight every day! That's over 200kg of food per day for the adults. They literally feed all day. Robin was very eager and willing to touch the elephants as much as she could.
When we got down to the river, we saw one of the six baby elephants there. So cute. They have had elephants born at the reserve, but now they kind of discourage it - they would rather rehab and let an animal into the wild than allow breeding to happen again.
These guys got the munchies and started eating the mahout shelter. They have a special guy that repairs these - a great "jobs" program!
We watched this little guy play in the dirt for fifteen minutes - his behaviour was so human, you can actually envision a four year old boy digging away in the dirt just like this guy did.
After grabbing a huge plate at the vegetarian lunch buffet, we were back to check out the elephants swimming and playing in the river.
It was time to give them their very own bath. The elephants ate watermelon from the mahout while we splashed water on their backs.
The kids were having a blast - it was pretty surreal being this close and this calm around all of these huge ladies. What was sometimes scary was that the elephants were so quiet, they could really sneak up on you. Sometimes someone in the group would squeak and you'd turn around and see a huge beast bearing down on you.
At 3:30, it was time to say goodbye to the one hundred or so day trippers, and we were left with two little overnight groups - our group of seven and another group of eight or so. There are others at the camp in addition to the 70 mahouts, dozens of food prep staff (human and elephant food) and administrators. There are also about fifty or sixty volunteers that are there for the week (or longer) on the elephant or dog program. Yes, dogs. They have close to 500 dogs and 200 cats, most of which they rescued after the Bangkok flood a couple of years back. They've been trying to find a home for them all, but also need volunteers to help with their care.
Tong showed us to our bungalow and said goodbye - he was to be replaced by our overnight guide who would have us at night and all the next day. We were pretty happy with that arrangement, as we were not getting too much out of Tong.
Our back porch overlooked the pens where the ladies stay at night. The mahouts typically bring them back at around 5pm, then come back in the morning to start the day all over. Pens keep the animals safe from wondering off at night (or wondering over to the male pens!) and it keeps them safe.
We met our new guide, Apple, and we were immediately stoked to have her for the remainder of our trip. Her English was excellent, she'd been there for three years and had a ton of knowledge, and she was all business about the schedule and what we could expect from hour to hour (directly opposite Tong's approsch). Apple told us we were in luck - Lek had arrived earlier in the afternoon and she would be giving one of her talks tonight! Fantastic - thank you Lucky!
Before dinner, we headed up to the conference room, along with all of the week-long volunteers. They also had not met Lek before and tomorrow was also their last day. I'd love to have a transcript of Lek's talk and the Q&A afterwards. Her presentation was devastating - trust me when I say, the treatment of elephants to be domesticated for any human purpose is shocking. We saw pictures and heard stories from Lek that were so disgusting and horrific that you couldn't help but shed tears.
You may think Lek sounds like a granola head, screaming evangelist but she is quite the opposite. She is calm, collected, freakishly persistent and surprisingly realistic as to how she can make a difference. Essentially, she knows that elephants make a lot of money for a lot of people (I can't even get into how much the Chinese demand for elephants for circuses is affecting the elephant community in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia) so she tries to persuade, influence and scheme for a way where the people can make money by NOY using elephants. She is.... An inspiration!
We had a fantastic day. What an opportunity for Beth, the kids and I. We were really on cloud nine when we hit the sack at around 9. We are really looking forward to more of the same tomorrow.
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