Baby Elephant Walk

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I left our hotel at 8am with several of the others in our crowd to drive the hour and a half out of the city to go to the Elephant Nature Park, which is a sanctuary for rescued elephants.

We arrived there around 9-45am after a short pit-stop on the way to stretch our legs and whilst doing so, spent a few minutes watching a man tending his rice field. Arriving at the Nature Park we went straight into the huge undercover communal area for visitors, set up with long tables with chairs, where Zaa, our local guide for the day, had reserved a table for us where we could leave our stuff whilst we were wandering around, just taking our cameras and valuables with us.

Before we got started, and for our own safety, we were told the do’s and don’ts of being around the elephants but, no matter how clearly things are explained to some people, they still don’t get it, as became clearly obvious throughout the day.

You should never stand directly in front of an elephant or directly behind, as they can’t see you and just sense something is there and are likely to strike out with their back leg. Their peripheral vision is better than their forward vision and, they can take you out with their trunk if you get too close or upset them in some way. You should always approach an elephant from either side, and then only pat or stroke them at the shoulder, never touch or pat their face or their trunk.



After being given our instruction, we then got to feed the elephants with chunks of watermelon which they loved. An elephant can eat up to 300-400lbs of food per day so, it’s a constant activity keeping them all fed. They eat fruit – watermelons, bananas, etc as well as vegetation – grass, corn cobs and stalks, leaves, etc and are very adept at separating the cobs from the corn stalks by standing on the stalk to hold it still whilst wresting the cob off with their trunk. Very clever!

We didn’t have to go far to be able to feed these majestic animals, as the mahouts, or handlers, brought the elephants right to up to the building where we were, which had a huge verandah running around the outside edge.

There was a wide red line running around the perimeter of the verandah about 1 metre in from the edge that, for safety reasons, we had to stay behind whilst we were feeding the elephants.

We spent the next 20 minutes or so feeding them small watermelons that they wrapped their huge trunks around with amazing agility and, even when the basket was empty, like small children, they foraged around looking for more, reaching back into the basket, searching for the last little morsel.

There are 30 elephants at the sanctuary at present that have all been rescued from various abusive environments such as street begging by their owners and have been hit by vehicles; logging (which was outlawed in Thailand in 1989); circuses and other working environments where they have been mistreated.

They also have several elephants that have trodden on land mines and been injured. There are also several that are totally blind and a number of them that have psychological issues due to their mistreatment and have to be “re-educated" and shown that they are now in a safe environment and that no harm will come to them now. All the elephants have to be purchased from their current owners and the cost depends on the age of the elephant and its general condition. Baby elephants are the most expensive and can cost as much as USD$2,000.



The elephants are fed and well cared for and shown lots of love and attention and there is also a live-in vet on hand at all times to see to their medical needs and recuperation. They will never be returned to the wild and will live out their days in the sanctuary. Ages of the elephants range from 2 years up to 80. They live until around 90 years of age.



Anyway, we were out there all day until 3pm and got to hand feed them with watermelons; wander around the sanctuary and meet each one (we had to all stay in our groups and just not wander off on our own); hear their stories of how they had been injured or mistreated and get to pat or stroke many of them.



Thai Koon, one of the young elephants at 15 years of age, had an injured left foot from where he had stepped on a landmine on the Burma/Thailand border and was still receiving treatment once a day for his injuries.



One of the baby elephants, at 4 years of age, had a very swollen left front leg from where he had gotten caught in a trap 2 years ago and was still receiving treatment twice a day. Poor little fellow was obviously still in a lot of pain, making walking difficult. They don’t trap elephants in Thailand, he was just unfortunate enough to have been caught in a trap meant for another animal – a deer, perhaps.



Another of the older elephants was totally blind in both eyes from when she had been a circus elephant and her blindness was caused from the strong lighting and from flash photography from her performance days. Elephants have very poor eyesight and mostly function from their hearing abilities and from picking up vibrations through their feet. That is why street-begging elephants become so stressed, because of the movement of the traffic and the noise of city streets – it’s all the different vibrations they are picking up – it confuses them and they don’t know what they mean. Constant rocking backwards and forwards is a sign that the animal is stressed.



After lunch, the mahouts (each elephant has its own mahout or handler who look after that one elephant all the time throughout the day, every day) brought them down to the river for their daily bath where we all got to wade knee deep into the river and throw buckets of water over them. Then, they were allowed to just go and play in the water by themselves for about 20 minutes and, didn’t they just love that? They were just like little kids. Splashing around and rolling in the water, blowing water spouts with their trunks and having a lovely time.



Whilst we also were having fun watching the elephants at play, we had been told several times, not to get any closer than about 10-15 metres to them in the river. All morning, we had been observing several young men from another group, doing many of the things we had expressly been told not to do and, this was no different.



Go-Pro cameras are all the go these days and several of these young people had these things on “selfie” sticks and had been waving them around all morning, often with total disregard for other people who were also trying to take photos. One young fellow, in particular, whilst in the river, got to within about 10 feet of three elephants, whilst trying to take underwater shots with his Go-Pro.



For hours, we had watched him constantly doing these foolish things and now, being so close to these elephants in the river, many of us expected to see one of them whip this thing out of his hand with its trunk, and fling it far and wide and, possibly him with it! Guess you can’t fix stupid!!



After this, we got to see where they keep “the boys” in the sanctuary. There are 6 of them and they are all youngsters. From a 2 year-old baby, up to teenagers.



The reason “the boys” are kept separately from the females (no, it’s not what you are thinking) is because, like human kids and teenagers, they can be very naughty and quite aggressive at times and difficult to manage, so they are kept in a separate part of the sanctuary, away from the rest of the herds.



Elephants are very family-oriented, not necessarily by relationship but, more by acceptance of another or several elephants if they welcome this particular elephant into their herd. This is done by acceptance when friendly gestures, are made and/or accepted, or not, by either side. This can take some time to occur – days, weeks or even months or sometimes never. If acceptance by either side does not occur, the lone elephant will move on to another group until it is accepted into that herd, and the process repeated once again.



It was while we were visiting with “the boys” that we saw two young elephants fighting in the river. What had started out as some friendly rough-and-tumble, soon became more aggressive and something of a free-for-all.



After awhile, they both left the river and came racing up the bank towards where all the tour groups were standing at what had been a safe distance, watching what was going on, taking photos etc but, things were now getting a bit scary and, when the elephants quickened their pace up the bank, were heading straight into this group of people (we weren’t among them). Another reason why you should never turn your back on any wild animal and should always be alert as to what is going on around you.



You have never seen so many people scatter in so many different directions to get out of the way. We had tour guides, mahouts and the general population all shouting at them to, “Run!!” One fellow had been taking photos and had his camera on a tripod, which he just managed to grab and race off with the two elephants in hot pursuit!



Once up the bank, the two elephants continued their feud which then, of course, unsettled the other elephants about, and you had to keep your wits about you as they headed off in all directions. As soon as you saw an elephant heading towards you, you quickly made yourself scarce and got out of its way.



In the melee, one of the dogs (there are also lots of dogs and cats at the sanctuary – many of them also rescued) got underfoot one of the elephants which then had guides and mahouts yelling at the dog; yelling and trying to shove the elephant to make it lift its foot off the dog, whilst the dog was yelping and trying to scramble out from under the elephant’s huge foot. It was pandemonium for a few minutes!



Don’t know what happened to the two fighting elephants (one was 10 years old and the other, 40) - whether they continued their scrap or not or just ran out of steam for, whilst all of this was going on, we had become distracted and had forgotten all about them – we were too busy trying to get to safer ground.



All in all, it was a great day and I was very pleased that I had gone. I almost wasn’t going to, as we have been to Thailand several times before and also seen elephants several times but, not like this, and not being able to get up so close and personal to them for long periods of time. It was also wonderful to see so many dedicated people taking such good care of these magnificent animals and the Nature Park is always adding to their list of rescued elephants. The day itself was also good value as it cost 2,500 Baht (or about AUD$120) which included a lovely vegetarian lunch and afternoon tea of iced tea and rice “cookies” when we finished. Leaving at 3pm, we arrived back at the hotel around 4-15pm.



Whilst I had been doing this, Ted had opted to stay in town and go and do a Thai cooking class with some of the others of our group who also hadn't wanted to go and see the elephants. Ted had said that Africa had spoiled him for seeing them in captivity (even though the sanctuary is huge)



Anyway, he too, said the he had had a good day and got to cook 4 different dishes and then eat them for lunch and even came home with a small Thai recipe book.

Tom Sum soup anyone? .....

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