Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2006
blog by Bronia & Dave Elephant Protection Project
From the island of
Ko Chang we moved on to the town of
Pattaya that made its name and so called 'fame' during the Vietnam war. It was in this area under the welcoming support of the Thai government that the US Army troups were allowed to be based to fight the Vietnemese. The troups, requiring rest and relaxation would head to Pattaya's coast for sun, sand and the beautiful crystal blue waters. It didn't stay innocent for long as the town quickly developed prostitution bars and gambling joints to service other soldiers "needs".
When the US troups pulled out at the end of the Vietnam war a void was created in
Pattaya that soon became filled with sex-tourists and other seedy individuals seeking Thai wives, lady-boys and children. It is this scene that still continues today with streets and the beach front lined with neon signs boldly advertising:
"Spicy Girls", "A-bomb for boys" and other salubrious names to draw Westerners in. Actually, it's not just westerners - It is a big draw for the Koreans and Japanese with a note in our Lonely Planet guide book stating that it
there is a significant population of African men here specifically to service the Japanese women tourists. Hmmm.... something to ponder on.
Despite this fame that
Pattaya has earnt it is still a very 'safe' feeling town with plenty of 'regular' or 'normal' tourists like ourselves wandering around and as soon as you get off the main neon strips it becomes much like any other Thai town with wooden houses built on stilts, laundry handing on lines, children playing in the street and dogs running rampant everywhere.
It was down one of these quieter side streets, in the shadow of some of the beachfront hotels and condo complexes that the elephant camp was situated. A large piece of undeveloped forest and scrub land that has been for the past five years the Elephant Protection Camp.
The Asian elephant, it's mahout (trainer/carer) and their joint lifestyle have been under threat for years as their habitat decreases and way of life becomes unsustainable. The Asian elephant in Thailand used to earn it's keep as a 'beast of burden' predominantly used to log the hardwood jungles of Asia. With the advent of logging machines, plus the decline in the amount of
area to log, the elephant has effectively become unemployed and too much of an expense for the mahout to maintain.
Enter the 'solution' (for now at least) of 'Tourism'. By creating camps where tourists can come and have elephant rides it keeps the elephants earning their keep, the mahout with an income, and it educates the mahouts and the Thai people about the importance of caring and preserving the Asian elephant, whose numbers continue to dwindle and who some estimate could be near to extinction in 50 years.
Unfortunately, despite the elephants having new jobs as tourist attractions, it hasn't always guaranteed better treatment on the part of their mahout some of whom, as we were to learn about during our week at the camp have been vastly cruel to the elephants.
The
Pattaya Elephant Protection camp that we worked out goes one step further. It is a tourist camp for the injured, abused and disabled Asian elephants. We met an elephant that had been hit by a car and now has a permanent limp and shies away from loud noises (motorcycles, cockerels).
We saw an elephant that had been hit so many times by it's
previous mahout that it arrived at the camp with a hole in it's forehead so deep you could sink your hand all the way to your wrist in. He now is permanently brain damaged and only tolerates his new, and much kinder, mahout but still has childlike 2 year old tantrums despite him being over 50 years of age.
Dave's elephant was called
"Poon Ma", in her 60's, and blind in one eye because of a cataract. She came to the camp a few years ago when an old camp at
Surin was closed. There were alot of elephants from
Surin - we think they came due to bad conditions and abuse there.
Bronia's elephant was
"Dacoon" who had a bad limp due to a genetic defect. She is in her 40's and 8 months pregnant (elephants have a 22 month gestation period - ouch!).
Dacoon's mahout
"Num" has been with her for 6 years. They both were originally based at a tourist elephant camp in
Phuket. The morning of the Tsunami, Dec 26 2004, Num was riding Dacoon round the camp. Suddenly she and all the other elephants panicked. Num describes how he and the other
mahouts at the camp tried to calm the elephants down not understanding why they were panicking.
As you can imagine, if a couple of tons of elephant suddenly decides it wants to move there's not much you can do to stop it. Num found himself on top of a charging elephant who was rampaging through the forest without him being able to stop her. Only when he finally returned to camp, and saw the camp washed away, and the devastation - did Num realise that Dacoon had saved his life. With no source of income due to the Tsunam,i Num was forced to load Dacoon on the back of a lorry and ship her to
Pattaya along with his wife and three children.
Our first day with the elephants all six of us volunteers; Dave, Bronia, Nikki, Andy, Rachael & Anita were assigned our elephants and had an Opening Ceremony with the head mahout to show respect for the spirits for protection. The head mahout was highly respected as he was the last of the men who used to go into the wild and catch elephants. Now in his 70's, he caught in his youth, before the banning
of elephant capture, 5 elephants. With elephant catching being a highly risky business he was like a demi-god to many of the mahouts.
Our week with the elephant followed a prescribed routine. Up at 6:30am to be at the camp by 7am. The camp was a 2 minute walk from our hotel through dense shrub and bush where we would emerge into a large oval area of red dirt which was the camp. Round the edge of the camp wooden shacks, for they couldn't be called houses, were built where each mahout lived with his family, in laws and copious amounts of dogs. There we would greet, clean, feed the elephants and their area to be back for breakfast by 8am. 9am we would be back at the camp to assist with the training and exercising of the elephants around camp. As time progressed we moved from walking just a short distance in front of them, to beside them, to climbing on to them barebacked and riding them with our legs behind their ears as they flapped back and forth to keep cool.
Getting on the elephant took a bit of getting used to. It involved firmly commanding
"tsoon tsoon tsoon" repeatedly to which the elephant would eventually lift its front right leg providing a stepping stool of sorts. Getting a foot on the extended leg and still repeating
"tsoon" you would then grip firmly on the elephant ear and with all of your body weight pull yourself up on the ear as the elephant would continue to lift its leg higher until such point when you could see the top of its head and with both hands pull yourself on top of the elephant leg flailing trying to make it look as easy as the mahouts do. By the end of the week we were scoring a decent 7 out of 10 on Olympic-styled execution.
Lunch was at 12 and then back to the camp to finish work in the sweltering heat of the day around 3-4pm. Some nights we'd go with the elephants to where they slept which the mahouts called 'the forest' but which in fact was a piece of wasteland several acres in size that is starting to be built upon with big hotels and tarmac roads as
Pattaya continues to expand at a dizzying pace. What will become of the elephants when
they are eventually surrounded on all sides and trapped within the oval of the camp I don't know but the future doesn't look good.
One morning we had the chance to get up at 5:30am and follow the mahouts back through the forest/wasteland to fetch the elephants and take them to bathe in a small lake. The six of us volunteers stood enraptured watching these magnificent creatures bathe and frolic in the water, rolling around in sheer abandonment joy like dogs in a muddy puddle. The mahouts got right into the lake with them and pulling out scrubbing brushes started to clean them from top to bottom. A very endearing sight and one of the many we have had on this trip which strikes you with its simplicity of existence and survival in comparison with the luxury of the lives we left behind in the UK.
In the evenings we would go into the centre of
Pattaya and visit shops, air-conditioned malls, experience the 'nightlife' and comment about how many old white men had Thai girls hanging off their arms. One night we found a Dairy Queen, the all-American-synthetic-icecream-parlour and Bronia educated all the Brits on the wonders
of a 'Blizzard' and how it's so much better than it's rival the McDonald McFlurry. Ah, the bits of home you remember!
We even found a Tesco's Lotus (yes, Tesco's have made it out here very successfully) where we drooled over all the western food we missed from home and bought treats such as Stilton blue cheese, ham, yoghurt, milk and cereal which our palates had not feasted on for months.
The week went by far too quickly and our last day with them was the Saturday. We got up at 6:30am as per usual and fed them, offering them pineapples and bananas as a treat. By this time the elephants knew us and would raise their trunk in greeting as we approached snuffling our hands as we stroked their trunks. We were told that after only 2-3 days an elephant recognises your voice and scent to the point where even if you return to them after a space of 2-3 years they would remember us.
We had a last ride and gave them a last shower to cool them off using the big concrete tank of water and buckets whilst shouting
"Bohsoon" which was the command
for them to lift their trunks and squirt water on their backs. If you were lucky enough to be sitting on them when they sprayed you got doused with cold water from head to toe which was in fact a blissful pleasure in the daily oppressive heat in which we worked.
The last order of the day was a Leaving Ceremony, again performed by the head mahout. We had to purchase for the sum total of 500 baht (8 Pounds Sterling) a complete pigs head, a dead chicken, a bottle of whisky, a bottle of water, some flowers and 100Baht ( 1.50 Pounds Sterling). Crouching down below the wooden temple we watched them bless the pigs head, pour water and whisky over various temple adornments, place a flower on the shrine, pocket the 100Baht (not sure about the religious significance there!) and rip the gullet out of the chicken to read our fortunes. Apparently the chickens' gullet and raw tendons indicates good luck for our future which we suppose is a good thing but we felt a bit sorry for the chicken and the pigs head leered at us with tongue hanging out in a most disconcerting way.
The pig's head was then rapidly whisked away and chopped into little bits on a iron barbeque in front of one of the mahouts shacks where they all gathered together and invited us to join them and eat or rather chew through bits of pigs cheek, face, snout, ear etc dipped in chilli sauce. Bronia and Nikki declined but Dave, Rachael and Andy tried a couple of pieces which they said was chewy, fatty and not to be repeated.
Goodbyes were then said and there was just enough time for a last meal out with our group before leaving the Sunday morning for the Monkey Project. It's quite incredible how attached you can become to these massive and gentle beasts after so little time but we both left the Camp and project feeling as though we had learnt an incredible amount about these animals.
Dusky Langur Monkey Protection Project
Sunday morning we were up and leaving
Pattaya to take a two hour bus ride back to
Bangkok, where we caught another bus for a further four hours to our next project in the
Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. We were accompanied by Om - a
sweet Thai girl who spoke beautiful English and worked at
Eco Explorer, the eco-volunteer company based in Thailand that is partnered with
Gap Year in the UK.
We had visited this park about four weeks previously as part of the tour with our group of ten, but we had not had the chance to visit the village of
Bhan Klung Thanod where we would be now staying.
Bhan Klung Thanod is a small fishing village of 200 people sandwiched on a small strip of land between the ocean and two huge limestone mountains directly behind it. Access to the village is via a small gap in the mountains.
Beyond the village lie vast swathes of mud flats and marshlands. These are internationally recognised wetlands that are on the migratory path for over 400 bird species from Europe, China, Russia during the cold northern winters. Unfortunately the land has almost entirely been taken up by shrimp farmers who have carved the mud flats into square pools that breed shrimp for export to Europe. On the one hand you can understand the Thais' farming anything they can if it will bring them a livelihood, but on the other it is
desperately sad to see this beautiful parkland abused which so far the authorities have not protected from exploitation despite it lying within the park's boundaries.
The Dusky Langur project work revolved around the care and conservation of the Dusky Langur monkey (see pics). There were at least two groups of these cute little primates inhabiting the jungle directly behind the village and it as these groups that we were trying to study and ultimately protect.
When we first arrived we weren't sure exactly what kind of tasks we would be required to perform and as it turned out neither did the head of the project, a nice guy called Ahnon. He was infectiously enthusiastic about this enterprise, with seemingly only the interests of the Langurs and the villagers at heart but with more heart than knowledge this project was floundering trying to get support and develop awareness about the plight of the Dusky Langur in Thailand but not having a clear vision or direction.
After we had been shown our quarters in the house of Mr.Lamai (an elderly park ranger), we were given the chance to explore the village. Our room was traditionally wood panelled with mosquito
nets, a bed that had seen better days and an electric rotating fan which was a godsend during the hot muggy nights there.
Our bathroom was a traditional Thai one with squat toilet with a tiled water tank and water scoop to flush your business down the toilet with. Next to it stood a larger tiled water tank with another plastic scoop. This was our shower and closer inspection revealed mosquito larvae swimming happily in it and waiting to hatch. We were promised that pouring the larvae over our heads when shower was ok and would do no harm!!
Things were obviously going to be very basic for us. The town only had one small shop, a couple of guesthouses that lay empty and one restaurent. When we awoke on our first morning to a breakfast at 8am of whole boiled squid (eyes, head and tentacles intact) and shrimp soup with rice we knew Western food and comforts were not to be had until we returned to
Bangkok.
The locals were tremendously welcoming and committed to helping us and the monkey project, and we were soon aquainted with many of the villagers.
Our main two "friends"
were Mr.A - the tallest gangly-est Thai man we have ever seen, and Tam - an ex soldier who now helps Ahnon by trekking and camping in the jungle to monitor the monkeys.
Dean, who had been one of our original touring party, had also volunteered his help and the three of us along with the villagers were to become affectionately known as
''Team Langur''. No one else spoke English except Ahnon and Om so Dave, Bronia and Dean had a crash immersion course with Thai including the use of over-exaggerated hand signals that you always do when trying to convey your point in another language.
There had only ever been two previous volunteers on this project and it was clearly in its infancy to say the least, with an empty converted guesthouse being used as a visitor centre. This was to become our ''office'' over the next week where we could use a laptop computer and some stationery to jot our ideas and bring others to life.
Days started at 08:00 and our first morning entailed a steep 1km trek to a large natural cave.
Sai Cave was actually beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the cool
air. We were told that the Langurs often also took advantage of the shade here.
Then we were taken on a trek to try and find another recently sighted group of animals. This proved to be horrendously difficult as we were following a non-existent trail up steep overgrown slopes punctuated by cacti and swarming with mosquitos. Three hours later we emerged soaked with sweat, puffing and panting and nursing scratches and cuts and ripped clothing. We think Ahnon felt guilty as we then spent the week without much physical exhertion at all. The view however from the top was fantastic (see pic) and showed the mountain peaks and marshlands with shrimp farms in all their splendour.
Over the course of the next few days Bronia re-worked the entire project brochure and made two new ones over the week with help from Dave who also painted a mural of Langurs on the external wall of the office. One morning we all attended a meeting at Wing 53 of the Thai Royal Air Force, where there were several groups of Dusky Langurs monkeys. Whilst the guys took pictures for the brochures and the centre archives, Bronia and Om met with
the Airforce General to establish whether we could have unlimited access to the army base whenever we wanted in order to study the Langurs and learn about their socialisation with humans as many tourists had been coming here for years feeding them. This proved very successful and a partnership between the sites has now been established.
Every evening at nightfall the horizon in the bay would become illuminated with green fluorescent orbs of light. These lights were the villagers in their squid boats and we were invited to participate in this process one night.
We set out at dusk and as the sun set we ate trditional Thai food with our fingers. When it became dark the captain switched on the flueorescent green light which attracts the squid to the surface making them easier to catch. We had great fun sitting on deck crossed legged hanging a lure over the side by hand and bobbing it up and down until you could feel a slight tug at which point you pulled the line in rapidly and dumping the writhing squid into the bucket taking care not to get squirted by the black ink it emitted in protest to
The view from the top of the mountain by our village
Dusky Langur Project - below you can see the shrimp farms + wetlands and beyond the mountain the sea.its capture. Normally squid fishermen stay out until dawn but on this occasion we returned before 11pm in time to sit on the beach, have a last drink and then head to bed for 'work' the next morning.
On our last night we caught a small boat to take us around the headland to arrive at a lovely picturesque camp site with white sandy beaches. We hired tents and equipment and set about creating a large camp fire to sit around until long past midnight. Om, Ahnon, Tam, Mr A, Dean, Bronia and I drank, chatted and whiled away the evening before retiring under canvas for some shut-eye.
At daybreak we made our way back to the village and then were soon heading into town to catch the bus. After some fond farewells from new found friends we were soon speeding back to
Bangkok and the
Thai Cozy Hotel - where our Thai adventure had begun.
The remainder of our group from the elephant project were already here to meet us and we caught up with our stories over a meal in central Bangkok as well as watching the first of the World Cup games with England
vs. Paraguay. Dave and Bronia had purchased 'England' t-shirts in Bangkok a few weeks previously for about $2 each so they were worn in support of the British lads. It was a great atmosphere on
Khao San Road (the backpackers area) with England tops & Paraguay plus Argentina tops etc. to be seen everywhere. The score was 1-0 to England and we went home with spirits high.
Back to Bangkok and winding down Thailand....
So here we are at the end of our six week trip, back in
Bangkok and one by one our group is leaving for home or moving onward to other countries. For our part our next step is to meet Sid and Kerry, our friends from
Worcester/Birmingham that we first met back in February in
Dharamsala, India. We will be travelling with them through
Laos, Cambodia and
Vietnam over the next six weeks.
Thailand has been the most incredible experience and a country we could easily return to as it is relatively easy travel and it still has so many bits that we haven't explored including the beautiful islands of
Ko Tao, Phuket, Phi Phi etc. in the south.
Thailand is a
real dicothomy - out in the country you feel as though you are stepping back hundreds of years into time where wooden homes are built on stilts, chickens & pigs run around amongst barefooted children, thai farmers are bent over in paddy fields and each home has a buddhist temple set outside (the size of a bird stand for your garden) where offerings of food, drink, incense are plied for good luck. Fields are ploughed with ox and hoe and shops are small wooden shacks selling bags of rice, vegetables, fruit and very few packaged products except detergent and pop.
In the spotlessly clean cities and along developed highways however there are more 7-11 corner stores than I've seen anywhere else in the world, where 5* hotels rival the best of any capital city and where malls and shops could provide you with anything you are missing from home. Out of all the countries we have visited so far, this is one that is the most obviously Westernised and yet still clinging to so many of it's pastoral and traditional roots in the country. Long may that dichotomy last to provide the traveller with an amazing experience and to
preserve a culture which has been so welcoming, polite and kind to us.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 7; qc: 28; dbt: 0.028s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jessica
non-member comment
Wonderful adventures!
Dearest Bron and Dave! a long lost HELLO!!! and I am so sorry not to have written all this time...I have read your blogs and what fantastic adventures and experiences you are having and have had - how brilliant to have them all logged so that you may look back on this time in wonder and nostalgia...you are both really going for it! and thats exactly the way to go! There is not a huge amount to tell from england apart from a sunnyish summer and much movement for both Phil and I...we are getting married now next year as it was all too much of a rush and too much going on with moving back to london, my sister getting married, helping out my mums business here in cornwall for the most part of the summer, that I was getting a bit panicked about rushing things...so we have taken a big pause and are just trying to savour life and enjoy the moments! I would LOVE to catch up with you on your return in January I think you said? and will write again more but I must now rush off to take 14 foreign children to the coast for activities! Much love to you both and keep enjoying it all elephants, monkeys and all that colour! Jess ( Phil sends his VERY best )