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Published: February 11th 2008
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Arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, courtesy of a Jan. 5 flight from Bangkok via my new favorite airline Bangkok Airways. Staying in a renovated 100 year old Thai house called Baan Orapin. Have a lovely teak wood suite in a back wing surounded by garden, mature trees and a refreshing, albeit very chilly, pool. Enjoyed great Thai dinner along the river and then explored the "famous" Night Bazaar. Quite the collection of primo crap souvenirs. However, we did manage to score the first 2 seasons on DVD of our favorite series Rome. Helen in particular thrilled as she finds Pullo and his cold blond killer companion extremely attractive. ( Yep, I do. But I really disliked the night market. Joanne, you warned me that you had seen elephants brought in to beg and we did - a poor baby that was obviously traumatized by the noise and all the vibrations to its sensitive feet from the traffic. It was rocking back and forth, which is a sign of stress in an elephant. Couldn't wait to leave the market. Made a short cut down a street that turned out to have one sleezy massage parlour after another, with young Thais, male and female, and old men enjoying them. Very creepy and depressing. Chang Mai is useful as a transit point, but spend as little time there as possible. The old part of the city has some lovely temples and there are some vintage buildings with woodwork so finely cut that it looks like filgree, but in general the place is absolutely choked with tourist shops. Our hotel, across the river from the old town, was an oasis of calm.)
On the 6th we walked the suggested tour of the old city and all its sights. Map very confusing and we had a few "discussions"before we completed the walking tour. Hot and thirsty by the end of it and happy to return to pack small bags for our much anticipated volunteer stint at Elelphant Nature Park (ENP).
On the 9th we returned to Chiang Mai from a superb 3 days of volunteering at ENP. It is a rehabilitation centre for injured and abused elephants. One elephant had its foot shattered by a land mine, others were injured in traffic or logging accidents while the majority suffered extreme abuse and serious back injuries when forced to carry tourists about for 16 hours each day in elephant treks. One elephant had both of her eyes put out by her previous owner as she refused to work after her new born baby died. Mom had been forced to haul logs even while giving birth and the newly born baby ended up rolling down a steep hill in the foetal sack and died. The manner in which elephants are domesticated is pretty barbaric as they are chained to trees for weeks and beaten with logs, chains, stabbed with spears, starved, etc, until their spirit is broken.
The park is located on 80-acres in the Mae Taeng valley some 80 kilometers to the north of this city, and is surrounded by mountains and has a cold river flowing through it. The founder and owner is this amazing Thai woman called Lek who owns the land and purchases the elephants with donations. She treats them all with TLC and they are allowed to roam around at will each accompanied by an elephant Mahout (Karen tribe refugees from Burma). The 22 elephants that are here love her and it is really a sight to see this 4 foot 10 inch lady walking about the fields surrounded/followed by various elephants who jostle with each other in effort to touch her with their trunks.
The volunteers have built sleeping huts, showers, dining halls and a kitchen on platforms elevated 5 feet from the ground. Considering the elephants can reach 9 feet at the shoulder, this means one must always be wary as they like to reach in with their trunks in hope that you can provide snacks. Feeding time takes place at 11:30 and it is quite a sight to be on a platfom surrounded on 3 sides by large hungry elephants. After some training (don't hold out your hand empty, don't place hand in elephant mouth, feed elephant only from its particular basket, don't tease elephants, stay away from the two elephants that killed their abusive owners) we fed fruit to the elephants for 1/2 hour before walking behind them down to the river for bath time at 12:30 and 4:30. (Helen: I fed the blind one and was a little apprehensive about how to do it, since she couldn't see the food I was offering her and could easily have snapped my wrist without intending to, but we quickly worked out a system. I rubbed the top of her trunk before putting food near its end and, after three tries this way, she knew to curl her trunk as soon as I rubbed her. The blind one has a special friend who never strays far from her. If they're separtated for more than 10 minutes or so, the blind one trumpets in fear and her friend comes rushing to comfort her. There's much caressing of trunks, reassuring grunts and joint pooping; it's really touching to see. There's another elephant that was horribly injured in a combination of logging accidents and stupid attempts to mate her with a bull that was so large he broke her spine. She's terribly deformed. What's saddest is that she, too, had a special friend, an older elephant who always accompanied her. We were told that, when the older one took ill, the injured one never left her side and tried repeatedly to lift her to a standing position. The old one died and the mahouts took the injured one away while the burial took place. Afterwards, the injured one walked the entire area of the park twice, looking and calling for her friend. Lek says she is suffering from depression now and they can only hope that another elephant will form a special relationship with her at some point.)
Bath time is a total hoot as we threw water on and scrubbed elephants lying about in the river. Afterwards, we would get an incredible show as the 4 "naughty baby" elephants would go into the water filled mud pit and wrestle, do face plants, 3 gang up on one, 3 sit on one, slide down banks on their butts and, a great favorite, blow trunks full of muddy water on the volunteers. They also tried to play their much loved game of bowling. Charging 3 or 4 abreast out of the mud pit, the babies would attempt to smash through the "bowling pins" i.e., laughing and frantically scrambling humans. The youngest baby at 1 1/2 years weighs 800 pounds and the other 3 range up to 1500 pounds so serious damage could result. Fortunately, the mahouts always managed to stop the elephants and it was really funny to see the babies squeal in frustration before turning to attack each other again and stampede into the mud pit.
Great fun, but you always had to watch out for the mothers and the aunties since, if a baby got frightened and squealed in alarm, the adult females in her family would come crashing through everyone and charge into mud pit only to surround the particular crybaby. These ladies can move very fast when they want to.
During our first day at Elephant Nature Park we quickly disovered that while the volunteers and 70 Thai employees had their hearts in the right place, their organizational skills were not very good. As such, they had seriously overbooked the place and 14 of us were asked to climb into the mountains to spend the night at a place called "Elephant Haven" with a family of 5 elephants as well as the giant herd bull (there are 4 bull elephants at the park, but Bikay is the king and recently knocked over and tried to goar to death, with his one large tusk, the number two bull). The haven, which Lek, provides the elephants with additional exercise from climbing and a chance to vary their diet with grasses not found in the valley.
What followed was an outstanding experience where we 14 volunteers walked an hour through the valley and then climbed 2 hours up into the mountains with the elephants, 6 mahouts and several dogs (45 dogs at the park). Quite a tribal experience. Some difficult climbing at times and pretty remarkable that the elephants could navigate some of the narrow trails. We were held up at one point when a large female (Lilly) decided to plant her bum on a large rock and scratch for 5 minutes. We were on a path over a river gorge with a steep thorn coverered hillside so had to wait until she was satisfied.
From time to time the elephants would halt to graze so some of us managed to edge past. The last 1/2 hour I was in the lead right behind the king bull and we decided it would hurt his feelings if we tried to pass him. Quite a sight to walk 5 feet behind this elephant as on steeper parts he would go down on one or both front knees and with some leverage from his trunk, and lots of grunting, heave himself upward.
Reaching Elephant Haven we were rewarded by magnificent mountain vistas although accommodation proved quite primitive - bamboo lean to open on 3 sides with bamboo flooring. Thin blankets were spread on the bouncy floor as our beds. Oh well, the amazing 7-dish spicy Thai/Burmese dinner whipped up by the mahouts in 2 woks over fire made us forget basic conditions. The mahouts then pulled out 5 hand made flutes and a drum and began playing tribal music under the star filled skies. After the first two songs became quite surreal as they switched to religious Christmas songs. I'll never again listen to "Oh come all Ye Faithful" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" without recalling the 6 mahouts playing this music in the mountains of Thailand.
The elephants wandered free all night and in the morning. Helen and I were asked to accompany Lilly's mahout further up the mountain in search of her. Fortunately after a steep 15 minute climb we located her munching contentedly in a meadow; however, she refused to move for an hour so her mahout told us to go ahead down the mountain on the trail and he would follow eventually. We left, after first wrapping selected trees with orange "scarves"" to indicate that they loggers should protect the sprit of these trees and not cut them.
A great hiking experience that morning although we briefly ran into a bad situation at the base of the mountain on a small trail. We had to share the path with about 50 elephants carrying tourists and being driven by mahouts with cruel looking spears and hooks. Well, elephants do not like dogs very much and the pack with us decided it would be fun to start nipping at one of the baby elephants accompanying her mother who had tourists on her back. The baby squealed in fright and three large females charged right through us (believe me we were scrambling out of the way) lashing out with their trunks at anything that moved. The three immediately surrounded the baby and faced outward in super protective mode. The mohouts on top of them, who haden't been able to control them, and thus scared the shit out of the tourists riding them, began beating them around the eyes with their heavy hooks. Pretty sickening sight. While this was going on a 4th elephant loaded with tourists spun around on the trail and charged back through the oncoming trekking elephants and the other half of the hiking volunteers including Helen. Along with the other volunteers she managed to leap off the path and was unhurt.
Anyway, lots more excitement and laughs over the next couple of days at elephant park. During the last bath time I was standing on the river bank warily watching two mature females passing by a few feet away on each side of me when I received a tremendous shove in the back almost planting me in the water - yes, one of the babies had come up behind me and used its trunk to nudge me strongly into the river. She made up for it later by giving me a kiss on the cheek with her wet trunk; kiss was a cross between an open mouthd kiss given by human infants and suction of a vacuum cleaner attached to the face. Helen is still preening as she received 3 kisses from the baby ollie. We had a wonderful final night of farewell dinner and lots of libations. However, we were awakened a couple of times in the middle of the night by roaring bull elephants which reminded us of Jurassic Park. I HIGHLY recommend visiting this rehab centre in Thailand. Definitely one of the highlights of our travels to date. (Plus, you can arrange to receive a wonderful massage at the end of the day from ladies in the nearby villages.)
Jan 10-12:
We returned to Baan Orapin for our last couple of days in Chiang Mai. Our focus was making sure we had everything we needed for a month of travelling, and some hiking, in Laos. In particular we made sure that we had enough pharmacuticals for any injuries we might suffer during hikes in the north and elsewhere. Our understanding is that Laos is pretty much a-do-it-yourself country when it comes to medical emergencies. We have a pact that if either of us is seriously injured the other will move heaven and earth to ensure that: a) no serious injury be dealt with in Laos; and, b) emergency airlift be utilized if possible via a helicopter service in northern Thailand that undertakes medevacs with endpoint being Bangkok or one of better Thai hospitals in the north.
On Jan. 12 we enjoyed really nice hike in Soi Dutep National Park located on a mountain immediately north of Chiang Mai. Blistering heat but heavily forested park made the hike bearable. We began our hike heading down the mountain side on a steep trail for an hour and a half before reaching a beautiful water fall. A young "norte americano" guy passed us on the trail, but we caught up with him a few hundred meters on when I rounded the trail and found him halfway up a tree. I asked him if he was enjoying the view and he said, "You may not believe me but I think I just saw an Asiatic bear - it was about 200 pounds and just a few feet away in those bushes". We were a bit sceptical until he followed up with, "You know, I have spent the past 4 years working summers at Yellowstone National Park and I have a pretty good idea of what bears look like and how they move." Hmmm, anymore room up that tree for Helen and me?
Anyway we hiked with him down to the first waterfall at which point Helen and I decided to hike back up the mountain (about 2 and 1/2 hours more) as there was no trail indicated on our map at the bottom of the mountain. We made sure to make lots of noise as we climbed so that the bear would stay away. I was a sweaty mess by the end, but all the activity made the thoughts of a cold beer dance in my head. Tommorrow we head to Laos!
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Deborah McIntosh
non-member comment
Great elephant tales!
Hi you two, Thanks for the four great catch-up blogs, and especially for the wonderful elephant tales. Your time amongst those great beasts sounds like it was amazing - - everything from hilarious to heart-breaking. I wonder how those tourists riding the elephants on the trail felt, watching the mohouts smashing away at their "rides". How could they live with themselves? If you could see the view out my window this afternoon (grey and rainy) you'd feel even more blessed to be where you are. I send you both lots of love, and hope the next leg of your journey is just as great as this last bit. -- Deborah