Advertisement
Published: March 22nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre
Michelle and Stu on our elephants Hi all,
How is everyone? Hope you're all doing okay.
So after 2 pick-up trucks, 1 taxi, 2 buses and 20 hours later we arrived in Lampang, Northern Thailand. Lampang was a a lot less touristic than all the other places we have visited so far and we were often the only farangs (foreigners) in sight. The town was probably more representative of Thai life but we found that there was little to do here.
On Wednesday 19th March we got a taxi to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. We had enrolled on a 3 day / 2 night mahout (elephant trainer) course to learn about the elephants and how to ride/command them. I was assigned a 10 year old asian female elephant called Wanalee (which I think was the cutest but I'm biased) and Stu was assigned the largest elephant, an 18 year old asian male elephant called JoJo. We arrived at the camp at 8.30am and by 9.45am we were performing shows to the tourist crowds (talk about being thrown in at the deep end!) It was all good fun though and we did an elephant bathing show for the crowd which involved us riding
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre
Stu's elephant squirting Michelle during one of the bathing shows "bonn-bonn" the elephants into the lake (snakes an all!) and sitting on them whilst they ducked in and out of the water. If you shouted "bonn-bonn' at the elephants they squirted water out of their trunks and Stu's elephant often squirted me!! After the bathing show, we did another show in the showground. When walking in my elehpant banged a drum with her trunk and Stu's elephant waved a flag with his trunk....very clever! The show involved us showing the tourists how we got on and off the elephants (in our case...with great difficulty, hehe) and all the tricks the elephants could perform. One part of the show Michelle had to walk into the middle of the arena and my elephant, Wanalee, would come and place a hat on my head...much to the delights of the crowds. Stu's elephant also did his solo piece by balancing on a small log with Stu on top...a great feat for such a huge elephant. Once the show had finished we rode the elephants to the fence near the crowd and they were allowed to feed them and have photos taken. We did 2 bathing shows and 2 trick shows per day...quite exhausting!
At
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre
Michelle after her elephant Wanalee had performed her trick in the show around 3.00pm we would ride our elephants back to the forrest for the night and walk back to the camp. We had to be up at about 5.45am each morning to walk to the forest at 6.15am to get to the elehpants in time for the morning shows. It was great and I like to think that I bonded with my elephant...despite all the aches and pains she caused...and believe me after riding bareback on a very large elephant for upto 5 hours a day, there were a lot of aches! But we still really enjoyed the whole experience.
We lived in a hut in the actual elephant camp which we neighboured with a Swiss couple. The area was like a traditional Thai village and we were constantly surrounded by hens, dogs (including a very cute Hussky puppy which liked to jump on our laps during teatime), cats and plenty of bugs. We met some great people who were also doing the course at the same time as us - an American family (hi guys if you're reading this), a young Swiss couple, a German couple and a young guy from Japan who had visitied the camp numerous time
before. We shared all our meals with the group and we couldn't have wished for a nicer lot of people, it really added to the whole experience. Our meals were cooked by our homestay hosts and it was delicious...the first time we had truly enjoyed Thai food since being here.
The course seemed to be over really quickly and after our last show we were awarded certificates and keyrings. Gareth - I have bought you a bookmark made of Elephant Dung Paper...I thought it was right up your street and very organic (even if it is a bit of a poo present!!!) We were quite sad to be leaving the elephants behind but we decided that it wouldn't be feasible to take them with us, hehe, even though are backpacks are massive! We shared a van to Chiang Mai with the American family, which they very kindly treated us to, along with a large medical supply (the lady, Ellen, was a surgeon), magazines, books and suncream....as well as teaching us some new card games....thank you!
So we're now in Chiang Mai (known as the capital of the North) and so far we really like it here. We are
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre
Michelle showing the tourists one way to get off the elephant during the show currently having a first problem of the trip though because our camera battery charger decided to give up on us during our time at the Elephant camp...although thankfully the battery didn't run out during our time there. We've managed to buy a new charger in Chiang Mai but the batteries don't seem to want to play ball at the moment which could mean that it was the batteries all along but we'll wait and see.
Anyway, in the next few days we are hoping to visit some hill tribe villages in the remote areas of Northern Thailand. We are thinking of everyone back home and wishing them all a Happy Easter!!
We hope to hear from you soon. Lots of love, M & S xxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0589s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dad
non-member comment
Elephant Centre
Hi, that looks and sounds really excellent, you are right, talk about being thrown in the deep end. It looks like you did really well and entered into the spirit of the adventure!