Becoming a mahout

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Day 346: Wednesday 10th June - Starting mahout training

I have to be at Chiang Mai’s bus station for 7am to get a bus to the Elephant Conservation Centre, an hour’s drive south on the highway between Lampang and Chiang Mai. The next bus isn’t until 7:20am, which will be cutting it fine to arrive at the centre for 8:30am. I explain to them where I want to be dropped off by imitating an elephant, and making a right fool of myself. What’s worse I think the Thai lady spoke English!!! The bus drops me at the front gate an hour later and then I get shuttled the final 2km, arriving at registration just in time. I am handed a blue mahout suit to change into which is a fetching blue navy blue linen affair. I could fit into the pants twice!! After getting changed I am then given a sheet of 14 elephant commands in Thai to try and quickly learn.

It isn’t long before we’re thrown in at the deep end with the elephants. On the one hand this is good - more time with the elephants - but it can’t be much more than half an hour after being introduced to our elephants that we are taking part in the morning’s show. I refer to the ‘we’ as I am joined on the course by Jan and Claudia, a German couple; and Zoe and Emma, two Australian girls. Before we take part in the show, we learn a few basic elephant commands and how to get on and off the elephant. My elephant is a large female called Pankhorn. She is 18 years old and her mahout is Lyoon, who will be my teacher these next two days. No classroom teaching on this course, all practical hands on experience with the elephants.
Among the basic commands we learn are bai (which means go), benn (to get the elephant to turn, whilst moving the opposite foot side). Then there are the commands to get on and off the elephant. To get on from the side the command is song soong, whereupon the elephant lifts its front leg, you stand on it, grab its ear and a hand full of its tough skin and hoist yourself up on top of the elephant. To get off the same way the command is hup soong, and then you slide down the elephant’s leg. You can also get off from the front by asking the elephant to tag long (lower its head), and you slide down its trunk. We practice getting back on this way by leapfrogging over the elephant’s head and on to its neck before turning around to face the right way. The final way to get on and off the elephant is to get it to sit down (nung long) which is probably the easiest but not necessarily the most fun!

Having practiced the basic commands with the elephants, we ride them down to the pool to bathe them. We have an audience to watch at this point as we take the elephant’s into the dung infested water to give them a wash and cool them down. The elephants love this part of the day. After the bathing, we walk the elephants back up to the parade ground to take part in the show. The elephants are introduced one by one, parade around the grounds, and then we demonstrate getting on and off the elephant to the audience, which is thankfully small. The audience then get the opportunity to feed the elephants bananas which is the only time I see Pankhorn abandon her languid style. After we’ve done this we sit aside and watch as different elephants demonstrate lifting, pulling, pushing and stacking logs as well as tricks such as balancing on a log, playing musical instruments and painting.

The elephant conservation centre is in some beautiful surroundings, forest surrounds the centre and there are a couple of big lakes in the grounds also. The five of us are staying in the homestay, living next to the mahouts in the housing within the centre. The homestay has a lovely shaded veranda which is great to relax on after working with the elephants. We get a couple of hours off to settle in to the homestay, relax and have lunch. It is plenty time for me to get reacquainted with my favourite drink from Malaysia - Milo - which I’m close to being addicted to!

The format in the afternoon is similar to the morning; take the elephant’s bathing and then take part in an identical show afterwards. When the show is over, we ride the elephants to the forest, where we put them to bed for the night. They are chained to a tree (with plenty of chain to be able to walk around a bit if they want) and we will pick them up early tomorrow morning. Their day has finished, as has ours. On the way back we visit the elephant dung factory, where elephant dung is manufactured into paper by washing, bleaching, boiling, spinning and then drying it. A range of products are made by local people, and I return later with some money and buy a few things as they’re cool.

We have the rest of the day at our leisure. I spend it talking to Jan and Claudia, whom I’m sharing a room with, and then we meet with the others for dinner. We are joined by a Canadian couple who are doing a one day course tomorrow. It has been a great day, the right mix of quality time with the elephants and enough time to relax and enjoy the surroundings and a nice group of people.

Day 347: Thursday 11th June - Passing my mahout training

We’re woken at 6am because as mahouts in training we have to go and pick the elephants up from the forest. On the way we visit the store and pick a couple of bunches of bananas to give to our elephant. Pankhorn is looking so cute when we reach her in the forest. I may be sleepy but I soon wake up when I see her. She is very interested in the bananas I have for her as she picks them up in her trunk one by one and shovels them into her mouth up to 5 at a time. Walking back through the forest riding Pankhorn, whilst feeding her the remainder of the bananas in the morning sun is one of the highlights of the two day course for me. The others are after breakfast waiting for the bathing, lying back on the elephant’s back with the sun beating down next to the lake whilst Pankhorn chomps her way through some grass. Just perfect! The final highlight would have to be my final bathing session in the morning. The mahout’s seem to be really up for some fun and they keep commanding the elephants to pick up water in their trunks and squirt it at one of the trainee mahouts on the other elephants. I get a super soaking, the best power shower I’ve ever had, if not quite the cleanest water!!!

Another show follows the bathing, after which I am presented with a certificate for successfully passing the course and becoming an (amateur) mahout. There’s not many people that can claim to have that skill and it is going straight on to my CV!! We go up to visit the baby elephants and the elephant hospital next. The baby elephant’s are really cute, especially the 12 day old baby. For me the course has ended. The others are staying to do a third day, so I stay for lunch and wait around for the afternoon bathing. Predictably, they try to squirt me when they exit the water but I saw it coming and hide behind a tree. The experience of riding the elephants, learning some commands and getting an insight into a mahout’s life has been a wonderful experience. It hasn’t been cheap at 5800 Baht (ฃ110) for two days which is a small fortune in Thai money but it has been well worth it. I was concerned that my time in Thailand was fizzling out after an amazing first two weeks in the country but this has been a great way to end it.

I wait on the side of the dual carriageway for the next bus to pass going to Chiang Mai. I decide against visiting a famous temple near Lampang as I’m still suffering temple fatigue. One bus passes without stopping before a pick-up truck stops and reverses down the hard shoulder. A well dressed man offers me a lift to Chiang Mai. Normally I wouldn’t hitch and haven’t to date on my travels, but it seems okay so I accept the ride. Bon is a lawyer who works in Lampang (to the south of the centre) and lives in Chiang Mai. He’s interested to learn about England as we chat on the way back to Chiang Mai. He drops me off 5 minutes from my guesthouse, and saves me over 100 Baht (ฃ2) in the process. As much as anything though, his kind gesture shows me the kindness of the Thai people. I’d heard all about the friendliness of the Thai’s but in the south and Bangkok, I didn’t find them that friendly. They were too interested in the tourist dollars. However, in Chiang Mai and the north, all the Thai’s I’ve met have been lovely.

Before the post office closes I walk along and send a parcel home, including my new prize possession - my mahout suit. Don’t worry mum when you open it, it is a clean one, not the one that I wore whilst bathing the elephant’s in the pond full of ‘floaters’!!!!!!! In the evening I meet up again with Mike and Trudi who have returned earlier today from riding the Mae Hong Son loop. They’ve had a good time and looking at their photos, I wish I had longer to be able to take the journey myself. I’ll save that for next time if I return. The three of us walk down to the night bazaar where I finally see some of the great arts and crafts that Chiang Mai is famous for. Intricate wood carvings, beautiful paintings, brilliant drawings.......I could spend some serious cash in here but I hold myself back because I’ve just posted my parcel home - typical! I do buy some DVD’s though for those long Laos bus journey’s I have been warned about.

I think all in all, Thailand has been my favourite south-east Asian country to date. Not by much mind. Definitely better than Malaysia and marginally better than Indonesia, the highlights for me have been its beaches, Kanchanaburi and the elephant conservation centre. Had the last two weeks been as good as the first two then Thailand could quite possibly have been right up there with my favourite countries. I now know why people rave about Thailand’s beaches, they are that good. I think the reason I enjoyed the first two weeks so much was that for me it was almost a holiday within a holiday. I needed to relax and chill out after all that trekking in Malaysia, and Thailand’s beaches were the answer. Also, spending most of that time with Mike and Trudi enhanced the experience. Thailand is the third country we’ve met up in, whether there is to be a fourth or fifth remains to be seen. We’re going in roughly the same direction, albeit with different timelines. Whatever happens, we’ll keep in touch as they’re good friends.

Thailand surprised me, and I got lucky too. It surprised me because it wasn’t as touristy as I expected. With the exception of Ko Phi Phi, the Khao San Road area in Bangkok and Chiang Mai I haven’t been overrun by tourists. Perhaps because it is the off season, perhaps because of the economic downturn, maybe both, but whatever the lack of numbers was welcome on my part. I also got lucky with the weather. 9 out of 10 good days on the beaches and elsewhere I can’t remember the weather affecting me too much at all. Chiang Mai was wet apart from the final day but when you’re in a cooking class that hardly matters.

Would I come back? I don’t honestly know. Part of me expects that one day I will. If I do I will be sure to check out Pai and the Mae Hong Son loop which looks great to do on a motorbike. I’d give the beaches another look - maybe those islands on the eastern coast next time. I didn’t expect to use my full visa. I have and I could spend a week longer here easily.

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