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| Looking pretty cool... |
We had decided at the beginning of our trip
that we wanted to visit an elephant sanctuary somewhere along the way – but all
the research we’d done in Laos and Cambodia brought up some places with dubious
records for ethical treatment so it seemed that Thailand was our best bet.
Even then – we had to a fair bit of
research to find one with pretty good credentials. Essentially we wanted to volunteer
at a retirement home for mistreated old elephants rather than one of the places
that made them dance and play football. After checking a few animal welfare
sites we found Baan Chang Elephant Park, which came highly recommended for the
size of the sanctuary and their care for the elephants so (at least by that
point!) it was an easy decision to visit them for our day of volunteering.
It was another fairly early start – we were
the first to be picked up by the minivan at 7.30am and then we did the rounds
collecting the other people we’d be volunteering with. Our next stop was at the
FANCIEST looking boutique hotel in Chiang Mai so it was with little surprise
that the two ‘queens from Boston’ (self-professed) got on the bus from there!
It’s an important detail to note because as the day went on they quickly became
our favourites of the group…if you’ve ever seen ‘Modern Family’, imagine two
Cam’s and you’d be close.
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| Starting off with a little one! |
After collecting the other people on the
tour (about 10 in total) we took a 30-minute drive into the wilderness before
arriving at Baan Chang. There we properly introduced to our guide, Tum, who
spoke perfect English and knew how to spin a good yarn to get a laugh from the
tourists!
We were issued with our outfits for today,
supposedly traditional Mahout garments (traditional elephant carers) but there
were plenty of those around wearing nothing as ridiculous as what we were
expected to get into so I suspect it was more for the amusement of the locals!
The boys were shipped into one room and the
girls into another to get changed together. I felt like I was in the Shawshank
Redemption as I stripped down to my pants and donned my beautiful all-in-one
denim ensemble. The girls at least were having a bit of a joke about it, James
later emerged from the men’s room looking a bit traumatised and said that no
one had said a word to each other in there, making it even more like a prison
strip-down!
Looking our very best we were then shipped
out to meet the elephants. Baan Chang has about 22 at the moment, 20 girls and
two boys – they also had a couple of infants that were born at the sanctuary.
Tum explained that while many elephant parks will prevent their animals from
mating Baan Chang has done a lot of work to secure land rights for hundreds of
acres of the surrounding land so that they can cope with more elephants and
allow the ones they have to mate. We even saw proof of this in action during
our forest trek when two of them took a bit of a fancy to each other! |
| Looking a bit nervous perhaps?! |
Our first task for the day was getting to
know them and gaining a bit of trust – and what better way to do that than
feeding them breakfast?! This consisted of about 100kg of bananas and sugar
cane. Tum explained that there were some elephants you had to be more careful
around than others, although all of them had their Mahouts nearby to keep them
calm. The stories he told us about the places they’d been rescued from were
pretty horrific so it was understandable that some of them were a bit twitchy
around strangers. A lot of the old girls had been used for logging (now illegal
but it still happens across SE Asia) but some had been used as performance
elephants as well.
We got to work on the mammoth (pardon the
pun) task of breakfast and then it was time for their morning exercise – a
short trek through the surrounding jungle. Of course it soon became clear we
wouldn’t be scamping alongside them but rather up top in the midst of the
action!
We were in two minds about the concept of
riding elephants. We had seen a load of American tourists doing it at Angkor
Wat in those riding carriages they attach to the elephants back and it didn’t
look like much fun for the elephant– piling five or six tourists and a huge
carriage on the back of an average sized elephant.
Our guide explained that the only way
they’d allow you to ride at Baan Chang was Mahout style – in layman’s terms –
bareback…as this is more comfortable for the elephant and follows in the
tradition of how Mahout’s have ridden them for centuries. After some quick
lessons from our guide and the Mahout’s on how to get on and off our elephants
(harder than you might think) it was time for the part I was dreading…the
jungle trek.
We were riding two per elephant, and our
guide explained that all ladies should take the front on the way into the
jungle – the front is the easier place to be first off but apparently after
midway (when you swap positions) the track gets a bit harder and us lady-folk
were better off at the rear. The highlight at this point was watching the
Boston queens debate who would be sitting where…
Soon we were up and off – and it was
terrifying! Elephants are huge! Ours was an old girl called Mae Dom, the
biggest of all the female elephants they had with a personality to match. For
much of our walk she was more interested in trying to scavenge leaves and fruit
from the trees than walking in a straight line! We had a bit of a climb up into
the jungle but she managed it with ease – I had no idea how nimble elephants
could be.
Soon we arrived at the halfway point and it was time to dismount. My nerves were absolutely shot by this point and I was glad to be able to sit on solid ground for a few minutes. Our guide took the time to tell us a bit more about the elephants and the sanctuary… and it was at this point we got to witness a bit of romantic elephant action! (although it was quite terrifying to be so close to it!)
All too soon it was time to switch places
and get back on the road – I was actually more terrified about being at the
rear. I asked James what there was to hold onto and he just replied…’elephant?’
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| After a good drenching from Mae Dom! |
It became immediately clear why the guys
had been chosen to be up front for the next leg as well, because it involved a
fairly steep descent back through the jungle…even steeper when you’re 3 metres above
ground level with only an elephant to hold onto! Being at the back was
TERRIFYING, I honestly thought I was going to roll off, and with only one good
arm to hold on with (yes, Mum I will never learn!) it was even trickier. Our
guide obviously noticed the absolute terror in my face as well because he came
to stand alongside us and counted down to when we’d be on level ground again to
try and keep me calm!
Thankfully the descent only lasted about 5
minutes (although it felt like a lifetime…) and we were on our way back to
camp. On route we got taken past the elephant sleeping quarters and our guide
explained that they’d just spent billions of baht on upgrading them in light of
their extended elephant family, so that all of them had space enough to lie
down and sleepy undercover if they wanted (Apparently elephants won’t lie down
on wet ground…who knew?!).
Finally we were back where we started,
sweaty, exhausted and shaky as anything! The elephants on the other hand were
still looking pretty chipper and were getting noticeably excited, as they
obviously knew what was coming next… bath time!
The Mahout’s led the elephants into a huge
lake on the property where they all promptly started rolling around and
squirting water at each other, it was amazing to watch. Next we were given a
bucket and scrubbing brushes and ushered into the lake to find our elephant. It
was a bit daunting as the water was pretty deep and there were submerged
elephants everywhere! But we soon found our gal and set about giving her a good
scrub… it was at this point though it became clear who her favourite was.
Having taken a bit of a shine to the beard, everytime I got near her she gave
me a quick squirt of water to the face! Meanwhile James was giving her a good
scrub behind the ears and I was getting a good drenching!
All too soon it was time to say our
goodbyes and get showered before enjoying a scrummy lunch courtesy of the Baan
Chang crew and then boarding our minibus for the journey back to Chiang Mai.
Needless to say we were both pretty
exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel, so we took advantage of a quick
nana nap before heading out for the evening.
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