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Published: January 28th 2009
From one camp to another After breakfast and repacking again it was time for Jane and me to leave the Lemon House for two weeks and make the 3 hour drive to our new home. We climbed aboard the open top jeep with our two tour guides Kim & Eg at the front. The express ways in Thailand are for more advanced than those of India and this made our journey a lot more enjoyable. We made a couple of comfort stops as well as a stop for lunch which consisted of more Thai delights.
We arrived at our new camp in the town of Wong Tong at around 4pm after a long drive through vast green hills full of Banana Trees, Bamboo and over large rivers. We turned off a rural road onto a bumpy dirt track until we saw an oasis in front of us. This newly built area was a sight for sore eyes. Four large huts covered in palm leaves were placed around the outside of the camp with a large open plan kitchen and dining area in the middle, a large grass area in the middle and a small area to do
you washing form the rest. Near the bank of the river were two sheltered smoking areas. The whole area had small gardens dotted all over the area and give it a peaceful air to our new home.
We were then shown to our rooms which consisted of two single beds per room and an en-suite bathroom. Western Toilet and a shower, but yet again cold showers were the order of the day and have by now got used to them. The rooms were large and the bed seemed to be one of the more comfortable ones so far. We dumped our gear into each of our rooms and then sat for our first meal at camp. The housekeeper had cooked a beautiful meal (Vegetarian) and we sat down eating and looking around the whole area as the sun started to set in the distance. We even have a kitten at camp and a whole host of chickens walking around.
After dinner Kim & Eg drove us 40km to Phitsanulok a large city to get some supplies for camp and anything we needed for ourselves. This Supermarket called “Big C” was huge and Jane & I spent well over
2 room Hut
Mines the nearest Jane's at the endan hour looking at everything from Food, Clothes and Electricals. After passing the checkouts we loaded the jeep and we then went to the corner of the supermarkets carpark to find a Bar with Live Band. So all four of us sat down and we ordered some beers. What came out made both of us laugh. We had ordered a 3 litre Beer dispenser full of Chang Beer (all for £4); mind you it didn’t take long for the 3 of us the polish it off. So after listening to a live Thai rock band, beer and even Live English Football match playing on the outdoor screen it was time to make our way back to camp.
Our day for the next 2 weeks starts with breakfast, but we did inform the housekeeper that a breakfast of rice & vegetables would not be required as we had brought cereals & peanut butter for toast instead, still can’t get my head around rice and vegetables for breakfast. Once breakfast was out of the way it was time to load the jeep with Banana Trees. About a 2 minute walk from the camp area is a field planted with Pineapple plants
and Banana trees all planted for food for the Elephants. So with a couple of large garden swords the tow of us cut down about 10 banana trees, stripped of the outer layer of the tree and removed the leaves. We then loaded the tree trunks and leaves into the jeep and made our 30 minute drive to the Sappraiwan Grand Hotel & Resort.
One man’s dream lets us live our dream The Sappraiwan Grand Hotel & Resort is a huge place with a grand entrance from the main road with loads of Statues of Elephants guarding the 1km long road to the hotel in the centre. The main foyer of the hotel in filled with pictures, models and other decorations of Elephants. The main building houses the reception, restaurants, fitness rooms, internet, shops and even a karaoke room. Outside is a large open air swimming pool and sun lounge area. The accommodation is one to three bedroom chalets spread over a huge area with lakes, waterfalls and rivers. The hotel is owned by a Thai man from Bangkok who now lives here and his biggest passion is Elephants. He always dreamed of having a large
Bedroom
This is Jane's mine was untidy !!!! enough piece of land to keep elephants, so 10 years ago he brought 6 elephants that he found were being mistreated and now has them live freely amongst his hotels large expanse of land. He has 4 mahouts that live with them who feed, wash, walk and clean for them and it is this that Jane & I was to be doing for the next 2 weeks and boy we could not wait.
The hotel then drove us from the reception in their open jeep to the Elephant area. As we drove over bumpy dirt roads with the deep forest of the hotels ground we soon came across an open area with 3 large canopies, a shelter in the middle and a huge lake in the distance. When we arrived there were only 8 Elephants in the area. All 8 were busy eating and with the biggest smiles on our faces the Mahouts introduced themselves and us to the Elephants.
Let me introduce you 1. Tong Tank 11 year old male
2. Sappaiwan 5 year old male, named after Hotel
3. Tong Tae 12 year old female
4. Sai Tong 40 year old female about 12
months pregnant
5. Tan Wa 2 year old female, daughter of Sai Tong, named after the month December she was born.
6. Wong Tong 5 year old female, orphaned about 2 months after born, named after the area
7. Tong Poon 50 year old female, about 20 months pregnant.
8. Gangsopa 5 year old female, daughter of Tong Poon
9. Boon Mee 43 year old male in musth at present and kept apart from the family for a while
For the first couple of hour we spent our time feeding these giants with the Banana trees and leaves that we brought with us and pineapple leaves. When it came to giving them water to drink that became shower time too, some of the Elephants mainly the older females like you to pour the water from the hose pipe into their trunk and once full they pour it into the mouths, this can take about 10 times until they have had enough. The others like to grab the pipe with their trunks and put in into their mouths and drink from that and can they drink a lot. Wong Tong likes to do this but once finished drinking she will
Bathroom
With Cold Shower, but was warm'ish in the afternoon fill her mouth and then spray you too with the water. So as you can imagine drink time then becomes shower time. So we both now wash these amazing animals. With the command “Mat Lume” we are both able to get them to lay down and then wash these guys with the hose pipe and a scrubbing brush and broom and by the time we have finished l think the both of us are wetter than the elephants, what fun.
Once nice and clean we clean their eating area from dung, old food then hose clean, this is then followed with refilling the area with new food. Once complete it was walk time and with the command “Mat Lume” we both climb aboard our own Elephant for a walk in the forest. We rode bareback and does take it bit of getting used to as each movement of the Elephants from legs is huge and the side to side sway from the top needs to be matched with the opposite from your hips. A good pelvic workout l have been told. After a couple of days riding we both admitted that our bums were sore and did take a
Sappraiwan Grand Hotel & Resort
This is the home of the 9 elephants day off riding in the hope it would feel better. After about 45 minutes we reach a field and all the Elephants are free to roam for about an hour, they spend most of this time still eating fresh grass or branches from the trees. Once we walked them back to the elephant camp it’s a quick drink for each and the 4 of us are then picked up by the Hotels jeep and taken to the hotel for lunch.
Lunch in the Restaurant was 1st class and each day consisted of a broth like soup of Seafood, Chicken, Pork or Vegetables. Then steamed rice with loads of different dishes, ranging from mild to some really hot and spicy, all fantastic and a joy to try. This is followed by fresh Pineapple, Mango and Melon. After lunch we were then driven back to the elephant camp and given command lessons along with more riding.
We arrived at camp one morning and the hotel had delivered about 500 small pineapples to the elephant camp. We picked out the ripe ones into a wheelbarrow and feed them to the elephants; some took them from our hands into their trunks then
into their mouths. When we fed them under ripe pineapples they would step on them and then scoop them up with their trunks to make the pineapple easier to eat.
Time to realise how lucky we are Some of us are lucky to be able to ride these great animals for about an hour in our lives, so being able to spend 2 weeks everyday with them is a dream come true for both me and Jane and it gives us time to get to know each of their personalities. The Elephants do have chains around the feet but at no time did we see any misuse to these or the metal hook baton the mahouts use. The Baton has a metal hook on the end but the end is not sharp and is mainly used when commanding the Elephant to sit or move in a direction. Spending this amount of time with both the elephants and mahouts we both could see the special relationship the two had with each other. We even got to meet the owner of the hotel one afternoon, and he was very interested in our desire to spend this amount of
time with them. He has even taken our email address so that he can send us pictures of the babies that both adult elephants are expecting sometime this year.
On the 2nd day the two of us were taken to a different part of the resort to see Boon Mee the 43 year old male that was in Musth. He has made both adult females pregnant and as he is in musth at the moment it is not wise to keep him with the others all the time at the moment. Boon Mee is huge and the smell of the musth could me smelt long before we saw him, he was kept in a large green area near a lake and had loads of space to roam about, the mahout then climbed onto him and we walked about 45 minutes with him back to camp.
What is Musth? Often mispronounced “Musk”. Musth is a word that describes a physiological condition in elephant males where higher testosterone levels, amongst other things, can make them aggressive in their preoccupation quest to find a mate.
An unpredictable and little understood phenomenon, musth first becomes prevalent for very
short periods of time in animals in their early twenties. At this age, it is usually suppressed by older, bigger males. As they get older musth occurs more frequently and last for longer periods. It establishes itself best in bulls of 30 - 40 years where musth could last for a few months. Some bulls never musth but can still successfully find mats and sire offspring. Musth is characterised internally by chemical and hormonal imbalances most notably surges in testosterone in the blood. Externally the temporal glands, midway between the eye and ear, become swollen and secrete a clear oily liquid that runs down and stains the side of the face black. There is also a dribble from the penis which runs onto the inside of the back legs and stains them black too. The urine, a greenish-yellow colour which smells strongly of testosterone, then runs down the feet to the ground where it can be clearly seen. This is a clear advertisement, and the scent lingers for a while after the animal has passed.
Everyday gets better and better One of the concerns that our two guides had was that the both of us would
start to get bored, so after explaining to them that, “not every day we get to spent time with elephants” they started to understand that the two of us were happy even to muck out the dung, washing them is loads of fun, feeding is great to do and then watch as they stamp on hard pineapple before eating or smashing a plant against their legs to soften, is a joy to see.
On the walk back from one of us daily walks we came back to camp by the side of the large lake near the camp. The both of us were glad that on this day we were not riding as one by one each of these animals walked in to the lake, it was amazing to see younger ones were playing just like children in a swimming pool. Each one sprayed water on themselves to cool them down and when they came to the bank of the lake each was covered in light brown clay like mud. We then walked back to camp and spent about an hour scrubbing with the booms and hose pipe to get them clean again ready for these guys to meet
some guest staying at the hotel. Once clean we walked them back to the front of the hotel and guest then paid for baskets of Pineapples, melons and bananas for each of the elephants to enjoy.
Our English day in the middle of Thailand On the weekend its free time, so with some supplies to be had it was time for the 4 of us to go shopping and where else would you go in the middle of northern Thailand but Tesco!. The drive was about 40km from camp and we soon parked up, it was like home from home (not). Tesco Lotus in Thailand is huge and there were lots of similarities with the stores back home as well as some fantastic differences. The non food departments here were so much better than the UK stores and sold everything from Table tennis table to mopeds. The fresh food market inside were amazing with the fish counters selling fresh water prawns from tanks and even live fish. The both of us wanted to treat the guys to a traditional meal from the UK so we spent about an hour looking for the ingredients, not easy when
most of the labels are in Thai, but we managed to find what we were looking for except one item so it was off to the local market.
After finding the missing item we were back in the jeep to camp, but not before Kim made us try a local delicacy of fried Silk Worms. With the both of us looking at this brown maggot looking thing in our hands we both knew we had to eat it or upset Kim, so after a count of 3 it was down the hatch and well it didn’t taste awful but not good either. So after trying that both Jane & I have decided that one day next week when another volunteer arrives we will try some others. “When in Spain as they say! “.
We got back to camp and set up the dart board we had brought and then proceeded to teach these two Thai guys how to play darts in the middle of nowhere, then by dinner time we had cooked them Fish & Chips completed with homemade mushy peas, we even had them putting vinegar on their chips which is unheard of in Thailand. To say
they enjoyed it was in the pudding as they say, as both finished off two plates full’s and all washed down with a few cans of Chang Lager.
Those bloody mosquitoes! Sunday was a real day of rest and the both of us spent the day chilling around the camp and catching up with the washing. Washing clothes here is by hand with a bucket of cold water and a scrubbing brush, this gives you a real sense of achievement especially when you get your t-shirts clean again after a day with the elephants with all the mud and grime of the day.
I have been really lucky (So far) with little mosquito bites or any other type of bite that you may come across whilst travelling in unfamiliar parts. Jane however seems to be the restaurant for all types of bugs in the area, and by Sunday evening had come out in all sorts of lumps and bumps. She had covered herself with tiger balm and all sorts of other creams but the itching and lumps did not seem to go down. Kim & Eg returned from their day off and on seeing Jane
we took a 30 minute drive to a local pharmacy to get some calamine lotion to help with the itching. When we returned the housekeeper took control and spent about 15 minute covering Jane in the lotion. As Jane said afterwards she looks more like “Mr Blobby”, but at least the itching has stopped for now.
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chris
non-member comment
Hi
Andrea and I follow your adventures avidly! What a brilliant time you are having and as you said at campfire you are making the most out of every opportunity. We are heading to Thailand at Easter but I bet you will have gone by April. I can't wait to go again after seeing your brilliant pics. Lots of Love Chris and Andrea