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Arrived in Chiang Mai on the 26th, smooth flights ,no hassle. A huge assault on the senses compared to Koh Lanta. Modern, highly populated and the traffic is something else. My hotel is sheer luxury compared to the volunteer accommodation, hot shower- heaven, first time I've felt clean in weeks. The water used at the center was rainwater and quite brown. Got an air conditioned room too bliss!. I'm just round the corner from the famous night market, hundreds of brightly lit stalls, a shoppers paradise, couldn't have picked a better spot. Took a tuk-tuk around the city to see some of the sights and the driver was great, pointing out all the landmarks, even stopping at the temples and waiting for me, all for 200 baht (roughly about £4)
Left for the Elephant Park on 28th about an hour and a half from Chiang Mai, such a short distance from a very lively modern city. Turning off the highway onto a single track road , quite narrow in places ,which rose steeply into the hills. Lots of the trees had orange ribbons/ scarves tied round, blessed by monks to protect them from being cut down or burned by the
locals. Helping to protect the surrounding habitat for the elephants. The founder Sangduen “Lek” Chailert was born in 1962 in the small hill tribe village of Baan Lao, two hours north of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Her love for elephants began when her grandfather, a traditional healer, received a baby elephant as payment for saving a mans life. Lek spent many hours with her new found friend, named Tongkum (Golden One), resulting in a passion that would shape the rest of her life, as well as the lives of others.
The park covers roughly 50 acres but they are trying to expand this to try and take in more of the surrounding area so that the elephants can roam more freely and not have to be chained up at night (own protection) They roam about the park during the day with their mahouts (mostly Burmese) who have undergone retraining not to use the traditional Phajaan training, using positive reinforcement to control them. At present there are a few farmers nearby the park who are not elephant friendly and kill them if they stray onto their land. The sanctuary has 39 Elephants at present, mostly females which will remain
in the park, several babies have been born here too, after five years of age the males are separated and the females remain with the herd.
All elephants that are used in the logging and tourist trade are controlled by physical abuse, usually with a metal hook on a stick with which they hit the elephants repeatedly on the head and insert the hook into the ears, tearing them or blinding them. It's absolutely horrendous, they use this on the babies too to get them to perform all sorts of tricks. There are still a lot of elephants used for street begging all over Thailand, tourists buy bananas off the touts to feed the elephants some of them babies. The touts make more money in a night than most Thai people earn in a month, it's big business. Elephants pick up vibration through the soles of their feet, this must be a horrendous experience for them in the middle of a huge city with all the traffic whizzing past.
It is so good to see these amazing creatures, unchained, roaming free and being so well looked after. All of them have horrendous stories and a lot of them
with terrible injuries too as well as the emotional trauma they have gone through. I'll relate a few of their stories and post some pictures, if you want to meet them all please visit (saveelephant.org )and read all about them.
Tilly is thought to be born in the mid seventies, It is not known where she received her injuries as she has had so many owners in logging and trekking camps. She has a dislocated left rear hip and a break at her knee joint, her leg is also much shorter than her right rear leg. Her spine slopes downward and it's hard to imagine that she ever wore a trekking seat given her disability, this is where Lek bought her from. Her best friend is Mae Kham Puan.
Mae Kham Puan was born around 1965, she was rescued from a trekking camp in 2010. She is 90% blind as a result of abuse inflicted upon her while working in illegal logging, when this affected her working her owner sold her to a trekking company. Tourists complained about riding her because she was blind and the owner sold her to Lek. Tilly watches and waits and guides her
about the park, they are always together.
Mae Jockia was born around 1960, she was rescued in 1999 from illegal logging where she underwent extreme abuse. She suffered a miscarriage while pulling logs up a hill and was not allowed to stop working to check to see if her calf was alive or dead. Suffering from extreme physical and emotional trauma she refused to work and the mahout deliberately blinded her by stabbing her in the eye with an arrow, she continued to refuse to work so he blinded her completely. Her best friend is Mae Perm who guides and protects her.
Malai Tong was working in illegal logging in the Tak provence along the Burmese border when she stepped on a land mine. Her owner sold her on to begin a life of street begging in North East Thailand where she was rescued. She is a great auntie taking care of Navaan a little 18 month old baby born at the park.
Hope was born around and rescued March 2003, his mother was a trekking elephant,she had been taken off her work due to illness and lived with Hope in the jungle near the
owners village. His mother died and Hope was weak and needed special care. the owner sent for Lek who rescued him and bottle fed him for a year. He has never been through the mahout Phajaan training and has lived at the park ever since. He moves to his new enclosure next week giving him more space to roam until they can find somewhere suitable to release him back to the wild.
Every rescued elephant has a tragic story but at least now they live a peaceful happy life thanks to Lek, Derrick her husband and all the team who help her. We were fortunate to see the arrival of a new rescue just yesterday "Tawaan", amazing to watch the other elephants meet and welcome her into the herd .
During our time at the park we watched a video of the the Phajaan training, there are no words to describe what these intelligent, majestic creatures go through. I urge anybody considering going on an elephant trek or contributing to street begging to check out the training on the internet. I guarantee you won't do it after you see it.
I've had a fantastic week at
the park, shoveling ele poo, cutting up hundreds of watermelon, cutting down bamboo, corn and banana trees and the highlight bathing the elephants. I hope you enjoy the pictures, just a small fraction of the ones I took. Please check out the website, there is so much more information on it and of course Lek's vision for the future.
As well as the elephants the park is home to approximately 400 dogs which were rescued a few years ago from the floods in Bangkok. Trapped on rooftops and floating debris with no food , Lek and Derrick had to hire boats to rescue them. They now all live at the park as locals did not claim them once the floods had receded. There are also a large number of water buffalo roaming the park too after being rescued from the slaughterhouse .
Lek has changed the hearts and minds of many people especially the local villagers who were against the park at first. She has brought employment to the area, buys crops from the. Local farmers and contributes to the local school. She has set up other projects too and fights tirelessly trying to get the government to
recognise the elephants plight and help change the laws which allow them to be treated this way. Unfortunately there is still a long way to go..
On route now to Hyderabad in India .
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Carol
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Gosh, Mae this left me in tears. I was trying to read it aloud to my daughter, but ended up sobbing. How anyone can mistreat these animals is beyond me.