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Published: February 6th 2008
Update from the Elephant Mahout Project:
28th January -3rd February
On arrival at the elephant camp this morning, I was quietly sat contemplating the volunteer garden (and its failures) when I was called over by a mahout, Tia, with a tortoise in his hand and told to follow him and another mahout, Mr. Choi. I did.
We walked through the camp, across the road, through the gardens in front of the Buddha Mountain, climbed over the fence (I think that might be illegal) and put the tortoise in the pond at the foot of the mountain. I have no idea where the tortoise came from. I can only assume that they had found it and wanted to liberate it, at the same time making some merit for themselves. I decided that it was just too difficult to try and translate that into my pigeon Thai and just accepted the situation for what it was….typical Thailand and typical elephant camp life!
This week I also rode an elephant!!! The first time in 8 months! Tia kept asking me if I wanted to ride Su Da….and I did. At first though I wouldn’t try and climb on in front
Em our baby elephnat growing up fast
he can even get himself a drink now!of everyone in case I made a (probable) complete hash of it. If there was any sniff that I was going to climb on an elephant they would be selling tickets, I’ve leant from the last time! Eventually he dragged me over to the tourist platform…the shame…. and I rode her down through the camp - to much hollering! I’ve ridden a few elephants in my time, well 4…. and Su Da has a really flat head. I kept thinking I was going to fall off….which I almost did when it came to climb down - again cue much hilarity from the building crowd of observers, now with tears of laughter running down their faces, as Tia attempted to coax me down from Su Da in front of the baying crowd. Oh and when I say climb down….I mean slide (rapidly) down the side of an elephant, landing with a thud as Tia catches me - obligatory bum shot attached!
Stayed at the camp again….which means…..more of my cooking. Watch out elastic bands!
Last week I’d prepared food for 7pm and we ended up waiting for the mahouts for about an hour before we ate, so tonight I
thought I’d be ready for 8 o’clock. At 7.30 Nin came over saying they wanted to eat, so I rushed through the food - not too difficult as I was doing spicy noodles (again - along with boiled eggs they are my ‘signature’ dish) stir fried vegetables (ditto) and I’d cheated and bought a fish from the market. It was huge! Grilled! Only cost 60 baht too. Bargain!
This week I decided that I had to be more active, there’s been far too much time spent in hammocks and watching crap Thai TV, if that is possible.
I had a very active start to the week….I got up and went to the forest with the volunteer to collect the elephant, prepared and ate breakfast (no, not boiled eggs) repaired the fencing around the volunteer garden, did the washing up (always a bit of a task as we don’t have nearby running water, but today we also had an ant attack so I had 4 trips to fill the bucket with water just to rinse them off) then I showered and put a face mask on for 15 minutes….well it was supposed to be…I woke up an hour later!
I did say an active START to the week! Going back to the washing up, of course we could make it so much easier but part of the project is that the volunteers experience the lifestyles that the mahouts and their families live, including the more difficult aspects….of course there could be washing machines and dish washers hidden away at the back of the bamboo houses and they’re all thinking ‘crazy farangs, doing everything like it was done 30 years ago….. !’
I do have ‘moments’ every now and then, for example when I was repairing the fencing around the volunteer vegetable garden, when I think that 2 years ago I would never have envisaged myself in this position, doing the things I am now. Despite the sometimes primitive way of life (excepting of course the TV’s, DVD’s, speaker systems…..and all hail the electric wok!) I am constantly reminded what an amazing place this is to be. As I was writing this section in my diary I was sat in a hammock, listening to Amy Winehouse on my ipod speakers, (hey if they can have dishwashers….) I’ve attached a few ‘view from’ pictures to hopefully not make you too
jealous! The fact that the current volunteer doesn’t seem to want to go home backs up my thinking - she keeps adding extra weeks and days and wanted to stay at the camp for 3 nights in a row this week - because she likes the shower!
This week the volunteer became a proper mahout - she took tourists out!!!!! my work here is done...for this week anyway!
As part of staying over at the camp we of course took the elephant to the forest for the night, and collected her again in the morning. We had a long walk this week - through the forest, down a steep slope, up a VERY steep slope (I lost my flip-flop ½ way up!) across a road, along a path….. Four elephants went to the same place and it was a beautiful sight to see them all together with lots of good food to eat in the fields. Then we went back and had a much needed shower under the stars (to the volunteer’s joy) and went to eat with her mahout and friends i.e. other mahouts. We cooked chicken and vegetable stir fry and pork with chilli….they provided, amongst
other things, a bowl of chickens’ feet! The volunteer was much braver than me….maybe it’s time to become a ‘vegetarian’ again!
In the morning when we went to collect Cam La it was very misty, which made the whole area look eerily beautiful, especially as we were climbing to a high point where Cam La had spent the night and we could look down on the low lying mists.
The volunteer did eventually leave the project, I was sorry to see her go, and so I had a couple of days catching up with work at the office on the computer. For the first time ever - in a total of 10 months - Ao ate with me!!!! It’s very bizarre at the moment as we have lots of people around. The building is being painted and generally blinged up. I’m not sure who’s who though, or if they are actually involved in any of said ‘bling-ing!’ To add to this someone turned up saying that he was supposed to meet Arnon to go to the Dusky Langur Project where, right at the very same moment, Arnon was heading back from….um……
This week ended with me being
A typical day at the elephant camp....
volunteer with the elephant, mahout relaxing in a hammock & a Thai soap opera on the telly back at camp. After not being there for a few days with volunteers, I’d told Tia that I would maybe be back on Wednesday afternoon, then when I wasn’t, on Thursday…and now it was Saturday! I just ended up finding lots of things to do work wise, and Arnon arriving back 2 days late didn’t help as I wanted to speak to him. So I was sat copying photographs onto CD’s on Saturday morning when Tia turned up on a motorbike, he’d obviously got fed up of waiting! After negotiating a time limit for me to finish my work (me: 4 hours > him: 1 > me: 2 > him: 1 1/2 ….ok!) I had a mad time running between rooms checking the CD’S, trying to get laundry done and pack a bag….and we finally set off. We did a bit of a tour of elephant camps in the area on the way so that he could visit friends then had the bizarre experience of riding down the highway on a motorbike and spotting Mrs. Noi….so we rode alongside her and had a conversation. Now if I had seen someone else doing that I would have tutted and pointed it
out to the volunteers as an example of crazy Thai folk! Before spending the rest of the afternoon sleeping in front of the TV Tia took me to a local noodle shop, where the locals found it very amusing to have a farang in their midst. They kept staring at me and looking at what/how I was eating…in between laughing at me of course!
Sunday was planned to finish the week as a relaxing day (for a change???) but I was just settling down to watch a Lindsay Lohan movie on TV (I think it might have been Mean Girls but I’m not really a connoisseur) when 2 volunteers turned up with Ao and Arnon!! So I had to ‘work!’ I also took a trip to the local market as I had said that I would cook for Tia and his family. We arranged to eat at 8pm, and for Tia to come over at 7.45 to help me carry things over…. At 7pm I heard Bim (his niece) screaming to me ‘Sam, gin khao…’’ i.e. ‘come and eat….’
But I hadn’t had time to prepare anything!!! We were supposed to be eating at 8pm!!!! I went over
and sure enough was told that I didn’t need to prepare anything. I do wish I had though. I kept thinking of the lovely fresh asparagus and spring onions I’d purchased at the market….as I was offered flattened whole frogs to munch on…….I was SO happy that I’d also cheated (do I hear echoes of again?) and bought a barbecued fish. Is it ‘officially’ lying to say that you’re full, when you’re not, just so that you can avoid eating flattened frog?......
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Katherine
non-member comment
Thankyou!!!
Hi Sam Thankyou so much for writing this blog. I volunteered at Forever elephant camp in 07 and reading your blog was like going to visit old friends. If your still there please write more! Katherine