Planning a trip for Simon and I can sometimes be a challenge. I'm a planner and he is a spur of the momenter, so we usually meet somewhere in the middle. However once we decided we were going to Thailand and Laos, I was determined to see the elephants, and he agreed that was something worth scheduling in advance.
After a bunch of research (did I mention I'm a planner?), I decided that we should have our elephant experience at the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) in Chiang Mai, where they pioneered a "no riding, no hook, no chains" approach to elephant training and tourism. Their tours are more expensive than other options we had but seemed worth it to know the elephants weren't being physically or emotionally mistreated for our enjoyment.
Sunday morning we set an alarm and the ENP host picked us up at our hotel. We picked up 8 other tourists and then drove outside of town an hour. We then switched from a comfortable van to the back of two pickup trucks to go the last ten minutes to the elephants' home. At the switching point, we also had a chore to do. There were many bags if cucumbers that we needed to rinse off and break in half to feed the elephants. Our guide said the elephants can tell which ones have been washed and only eat the unwashed ones once everything else is gone. Chore done and loaded into the trucks, we headed off the main road onto a dirt road and our excitement kept climbing.
Before I knew it, we were there. I've only ever seen elephants at the zoo, or from a jeep in the Serengeti on safari. They have always been physically separate from me and in the safari in particular it was drilled into us that we could never get out of the car. So climbing down from the truck and standing 20 feet from a small herd of four elephants felt like we must be doing something wrong because how could we possibly be having this experience right now. I think everyone was a little stunned that we were going to be able to get this close and lingered near the truck because they didn't know what to do. I was watching the mahouts (elephant trainers) carry the baskets of fruit to the feeding area and when one of them indicated to follow him, he didn't have to think twice.
Feeding them was crazy. Their trunks are powerful and hairy and way longer than I realized. They use their trunks to reach out and take your food, and they suck in on their trunks like a vacuum to get the food to stick. They also curl up their trunks in a spiral to hold the food as it goes from the outstretched trunk into their mouths. They were so fast you could barely get the next cucumber ready before they were reaching for it. Our group was a perfect size - 10 people for 4 elephants. It meant every elephant was getting constant attention but there was very little feeling of "I'm not getting enough time" amongst the humans in the arrangement.
(Editors note: publishing blogs from southeasr asia without a computer is technologically challengine. If these videos dont work, we posted links directly to youtube at the bottom.)
We also got to observe a little about the elephants' personalities. All were female, as the male elephants generally live by themselves in the wild and don't live well with young elephants that aren't theirs. Two were older (35 and 40) and two were younger (8 and 12.) The 8 year old was definitely protected by the older ones when something scared them, like when a truck from a neighboring farm drove by too fast and close for them. The baby also had a different way of eating that didn't seem to work as well. She collected many pieces of squash in her trunk and trying to shove all of them into her mouth at once (and usually dropping half on the ground) instead of going from trunk to mouth with each piece. The 12 year old acted like a troublemaking teenager, reaching across the fence line to eat tasty banana leaves, climbing over the barrier in the feeding area to get closer, and climbing way up a hill even though the others didn't go there. Each elephant had a mahout, who we came to think of more as a babysitter than a trainer. The mahouts at ENP use their voices to tell the elephants what to do and it works well, although sometimes you can see the elephants actively delaying their response to an instruction, to me showing that they have much more freedom than if they were being poked with a hook or nail to follow.
We also got to observe a little about the elephants' personalities. All were female, as the male elephants generally live by themselves in the wild and don't live well with young elephants that aren't theirs. Two were older (35 and 40) and two were younger (8 and 12.) The 8 year old was definitely protected by the older ones when something scared them, like when a truck from a neighboring farm drove by too fast and close for them. The baby also had a different way of eating that didn't seem to work as well. She collected many pieces of squash in her trunk and trying to shove all of them into her mouth at once (and usually dropping half on the ground) instead of going from trunk to mouth with each piece. The 12 year old acted like a troublemaking teenager, reaching across the fence line to eat tasty banana leaves, climbing over the barrier in the feeding area to get closer, and climbing way up a hill even though the others didn't go there. Each elephant had a mahout, who we came to think of more as a babysitter than a trainer. The mahouts at ENP use their voices to tell the elephants what to do and it works well, although sometimes you can see the elephants actively delaying their response to an instruction, to me showing that they have much more freedom than if they were being poked with a hook or nail to follow.
After feeding the elephants, we walked with them through a scrubby field towards the lunch spot. Elephants eat 16-17 hours a day so they were constantly eating. They are also keystone species ecologically because they use their bodies, trunks, and voracious appetites to knock down trees and make way for grasses. I was hoping to see them knock down a big tree but had to settle for smaller branches. When we got to the lunch spot, we parted ways with the elephants for a little bit and enjoyed an all-vegetarian (but lots of fish sauce) meal. We also had a short nap waiting for the activities to begin. Before we could go see the elephants again, we had to prepare their vitamins for later which were balls of banana and squash plus paddy rice (detoxing) and iodized salt (key for the hot weather.) Simon helped dehusk the paddy rice using an ancient grinding technique.
Then it was time for the elephants to have a mud bath. We got changed into clothes we could get dirty in then wandered over to a mud pit. Again there was a sense of shyness in our group about what exactly we were supposed to do, but our guide told us we could walk into the mud pit. There was a big sense of anticipation waiting to see the elephants come towards us and when they finally did I had the same feelings I had had that morning of wonder, joy, and excitement. The elephants didn't jump right into the mud like i thought they might. They kind of hung out on the edges and tentatively slid into the mid, one at a time. We had buckets with us and were encouraged to help them bathe by throwing mud at them. Honestly this part felt a little too strange to me because after all the talk of elephants being their own beings, it seemed to me maybe they didn't love us "helping" them bathe. But it was cool to see how they interacted with each other and with the mud during this time, and they did definitely get in the mud and get extra dirty before the river bath part.
The last part of our time was spent in the river downstream from the mud bath, where we helped them clean off from the mud. This part they seemed to LOVE! They would lay down in the river (about 2 feet deep) and stick their whole heads underwater, with their trunks coming up like a snorkel to breathe. I had recently read an article about how wooly mammoths (elephant cousins) crossed between islands using their trunks as snorkels, so it was amazing to see that that might be true. Here it was easier and felt ,ore natural to throw water on them to help them bathe, and especially after the Songkran water fights everyone was pretty good at it. At some point during the bath, i started getting splashed myself and i realized it was the elephants squirting water at me with their trunks! The mahouts were helping them aim and then feeding them sunflower seeds after each squirt, and it was hard to see them coming! It felt just like Songkran all over again, except this time across species.
Once the mud bath was over, we walked to another feeding area and fed them one more time. We also fed them the supplements we had mixed for them earlier. As a group, we tried to make sure each elephant got some, but one of the older elephants didn't seem to want it and the youngest one was so insistent with her trunk that she got ,ore than her fair share. It almost seemed like the older one wanted then younger one to get more, but maybe I'm anthropomorphizing too much there. Tis last part was also a chance to see how gentle and in control the elephants were of their big bodies. At one point, the teenager wanted to come into the feeding area across a gap in the fence. The trainer lay down across the gap, preventing the elephant from coming. But then the elephant got up really close and gingerly stepped over the trainer, one foot at a time, and came right on in to where the food was.
It was so hard to say goodbye to the elephants when it was finally time to go. It was amazing seeing them in a more natural state, although these elephants are relatively domesticated and have never lived completely wild by themselves like those I saw on the Serengeti. The tradeoff seemed worth it to me though because i actually got to interact with these elephants and see their personalities up close, rather than watching a herd from afar.
Elephant tourism in Thailand has morphed dramatically from elephant shows (playing soccer, painting) to elephant trekking to now "elephant care", where tourists interact with elephants without them having to perform specific unnatural tricks over and over again. The Elephant Nature Park founded this type of tourism, and has since spread it to many other camps throughout Thailand and Myanmar. It was cool to see how that transition to a kinder tourism has happened and I was really glad to get to spend a day feeding, walking with, and bathing elephants on their own terms. Its an experience I never knew was possible, and an experience I will never forget.
Links in case videos didn't work.
https://youtu.be/-lHX6naTyCM
Links in case videos didn't work.
https://youtu.be/-lHX6naTyCM
No comments:
Post a Comment