Elephant Nature Park - Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Where I stayed
Elephant Nature Park
What I did
Elephant Nature Park Chiang Mai
For this blog I am going to have to just write about my highlights as I volunteered at this amazing place for a week and I could literally write a book about how much I loved it. Plus I have so many photo's I think I will be putting up a lot and I know how much everyone wants to see baby elephants!
The Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary just north of Chiang Mai set up by an amazing woman called Lek Chailert for distressed elephants starting in the 1990s. Its an award winning sanctuary and the aims are to get elephants back into the wild, preserve their environment, educate people and assist the local community. I chose this place to volunteer because I had heard about how reputable it was and they don't ride the elephants there. Its all about the welfare of the animal and I can't sing its praises enough. All the elephants are free roaming and they each have a mahout that looks after them and follows them through out the day. Unfortunately, due to surrounding farms, the elephants have to be enclosed at night so the mahouts can rest but also because there is risk of them wandering onto other farm land where they could be intentionally harmed. Lek herself told us the park is far from perfect and the issue is trying to get hold of more land, until they have more land she cannot rescue more elephants either, but she has certainly made a difference with all that she has done so far. There are 36 elephants currently at the park and trying to remember all their names is pretty tough! They each have their own story. There is Jokia, who was a logging elephant. She gave birth to her calf whilst logging and the calf died. Because of this, Jokia grieved and refused to work so her owners blinded her by slingshots to the eyes. Heartbreaking. But most of the elephants have joined into herds or found friends. Jokia became best buddies with Mai Peung, the first elephant Lek ever rescued, and she really looks after Jokia. Then there was Lucky who was an ex-circus elephant and also Medo who drags her back legs where one of her legs was broken from logging and then she was always injured in a force breeding situation. My favourite elephant was Mae Jan Peng, an ex- trekking elephant that had an earring in her ear where her previous mahout had put a hole in it from a hook. She was also the grandma of twin baby elephants (which is extremely rare) in the parks other volunteering scheme. The park also has rescue cats, water buffalo, cows and a whole dog rescue since the Bangkok floods in 2011 where hundreds of stray dogs needed rescuing.
Day 1
I knew it was going to be an emotional week even on the minibus journey to the park. We watched a documentary about Lek and the park and I already felt upset for what the animals have to go through. On arrival we were shown around the park by one of the Volunteer Coordinators and I straight away had my first highlight, we each stood one by one with one of the herds in the background so we could get photos taken, but on my turn, the youngest baby in the Park Yindie, decided to wander up to me and wrap his little trunk around my arm and in his mouth. I wanted to squeal because he was so cute!
In the afternoon we watched a documentary about the cruelty behind training elephants to be ridden. Its the most disturbing thing I've ever seen, its an old tradition where the elephants are basically brutally attacked with hooks until their spirit is broken into being ridden. You could really see the pain and trauma in their eyes and the screaming was horrific. This reduced me to tears. Luckily the documentary also showed about the things Lek was doing to try and stop this treatment. And then we were all cheered up by elephant bathing! Grab a bucket and wash and elephant and feed them, so surreal! I loved it. That evening we were treated to a welcoming ceremony where we had white string tied around our wrist as part of Thai tradition and a shaman did a ritual to take our bad luck away.
Day 2
One of the highlights was waking up, opening my door and seeing elephants. I was in a dream world! Our big group was split up into three smaller groups and we started our duties that morning. First up was grass cutting by the river for the elephant food, hard work but fun. We had to make about 250 bundles of hay which would feed the elephants for one night. We had to use machetes too which was fun although I wasn't too good and the volunteer coordinator had to show me how to use it! In the afternoon, our group had it easy. On the agenda was an elephant walk. We walked with Jokia and Mai Peung out of the park up into the hills where they could feed on grass and have a rummage. They got a bit worried a couple of times when some dogs appeared and started trunk smacking the ground (a sign they are scared) but settled into eating. The sweetest moment was when Jokia strayed a bit further from Mai Peung than she wanted to (as she's blind), so she let out a deep growl noise and Mai Peung was by her side straight away, prodding each other with their trunks. After elephant bathing time, we got to meet Lek. I've never met someone so humble and inspiring. She spoke to us all about the park and her aims and told us about the horrific training that is behind elephant painting (which I had no idea about) We watched another video clip that confirmed the horrors of it. And we also got to ask her loads of questions. I asked her where she wanted to see the park in 10 years time and she said she wanted to have enough land for all the elephants to be wild in the jungle and no one to touch them. After dinner we were also treated to the volunteer coordinators teaching us about Thai culture and language. I felt like I learnt loads in the just the first two days.
Day 3
Today's job was rice hay transportation. This was really fun! We got to ride in the back of an open-top truck for about an hour before gathering up bundles of hay and loading into the truck. We were slightly delayed due to the truck's wheel sliding off the path into mud and getting stuck. We even tried getting into the truck and using our weight to help get it out...this was not safe though...it was almost on its side! A tractor was the only thing that could pull it out. The best part was the journey home. Another of my highlights. We had to climb up the side of the truck to get in the top and ride back on top of the hay! We even had tourists taking photos of us! After lunch we unloaded all the hay but we were rewarded with a visit to see Yindie the baby elephant. Not only that...they were bathing in mud. I literally cannot put into words how cute a baby elephant rolling around in mud is. You will have to just look at the photos and see for yourself. In our free time afterwards, some of us took dogs from the rescue for walks. We took a litter of ten rescue puppies out. Mayhem. I took a photo of everyone walking dogs, looked at it afterwards and realised how surreal this moment was. Walking dogs and there's an elephant in the back ground, not everyday you see that! Today was a busy day, after dog walk I went to bath elephants and on my way back the banana truck had arrived so we unloaded that before going to talk about the elephants. This was the next surreal moment...unloading a banana truck whilst we all sing along to Bob Marley. Life was good!
Day 4
My time at the park was going too quick, day four already. And this mornings work...Ele food! This involved preparing the elephants pumpkins and watermelons by washing and chopping. By the way, skinning and chopping watermelon is a job I could do forever. We also had to peel bananas and make banana balls for an older elephant by mashing the bananas up with corn and bran. Amongst this though, we had two truckloads of deliveries. One was pumpkins and one was watermelons. Its a lengthy process but we all get in line and start a chain of passing (or throwing and smashing) the goods. I found it fun and felt like I had done some proper walk the last couple of days which makes a change to sightseeing. In my free time I cuddled some kittens, then in the afternoon we had to unload some more hay and also collect rocks by the river for building. The reward today for our hard work was a walk with Lek and the elephants. This turned out to be another of my main highlights. We went out into the park where Lek was taking photos of the elephants. She had said she would show how gentle elephants are by showing us how she can sit under them and we too could sit under them. She wasn't joking, we each got to sit right under the elephants feet! For some reason it didn't feel scary at all even though they moving about loads to eat their food. I think I just trusted Lek as she had grown up with elephants and knows exactly how they behave. It was nice to also see Lek with the elephants, she's so tiny you think she's going to get crushed! But you can also see the bond she's built up with the elephants over the years. Me and a couple of the girls were sat on the ground watching the elephants when the whole herd suddenly became very close. Lek was a few metres away and told us to stay where we were. The baby of the herd, Dok Mai was right next to me with her bum in my face when she suddenly decided to try and smother me! I had to quickly get up but Lek got photo's of the whole ordeal and I was left with muddy little trunk marks all over me! This was my favourite moment of the whole week and I felt so lucky.
Day 5
Todays morning job was shovelling Ele poo! I really enjoyed it as it reminded me of when I had a horse. We cleaned out four enclosures and the feeding area. I had a poo fight with the volunteer coordinator and played poo cricket. This backfired on me though when I was batting and the elephant poo exploded in my face. I'm pretty sure it went in my mouth. After that we got to go and feed banana balls to a really old elephant. She has them because she's underweight but she's also about 90 years old! Not too old to eat her food too fast and have to spit some back out though! In the afternoon we got to on a another walk with Lek. We prepared the elephants food (and also bought ice cream for ourselves from the regular ice cream man on his bike that always just says 'Helloooooooo ice creeeeaaam!' Loved him!) and then headed out into the park to meet with Lek. It was really interesting to watch the elephants as they were in a different mood to yesterday, they didn't want there bath (and they have to be bathed everyday to clean any fly eggs off them) and there was a few times when we had to move quickly to get out of their way! It was also funny to watch Lek trying to check baby Dok Mai over whilst one of the other young elephants decided to stand over her head. Instead of a bath the elephants decided to have a dust bath instead. This is where the baby Dok Mai decided to show off again by coming right up to where we were sitting and spraying dust all over herself. She got a bit close at one point and one of the volunteers in my group had to literally do a backwards roll down a hill away from her! It was either that or get sat on by an 150kg ele and I had already experienced that the previous day. For some reason I had funny encounters with all three baby elephants in the park. The third was when Navann, a boisterous baby elephant (who has broken his mahouts ribs in the past) wrapped his trunk around me whilst I was crouching by the railing to see him where he was causing trouble. One of the other volunteers went to take a photo but it was too late, he was off causing trouble elsewhere! One of the best moments of this walk with Lek was when one of the elephants in the herd let out a trunk noise and then the low growling noise (which is a signal to the herd to gather) and two elephants in the distance made their way over to the rest of the herd immediately. Their communication is so impressive. I thought I'd walk a rescue dog after this in my free time but there were no more dogs that needed walking, so instead I sat with a really nervous dog that apparently is so frightened she never leaves her bed. She didn't really leave her bed but she accepted some treats from me. In the evening a few of us watched the documentary called Blackfish. It's all about how corrupt Seaworld is and how the Killer Whales ended up in there. Quite an eye opener and I would never go to Seaworld after watching it. It was also upsetting in places, this week had made me into a blubbering mess!
Day 6
We had a lovely job for the morning...an elephant walk! We got to walk around the whole park and see all 36 elephants whilst the volunteer coordinator told us about them and also tested our knowledge on all their names. We saw some more funny moments, again whilst watching Dok Mai's herd. The mahouts were sitting on a log that crossed a ditch whilst they were carving wooden elephant sculptures. One of the younger elephants, Pha Mai, decided she was going to cross the log bridge! I'm not sure how an elephant manages to cross a skinny log bridge but she managed it after much balancing and wobbly. We were all so engrossed in watching Pha Mai's balancing act, that we failed to realise that one of the young boisterous males (with tusks!) called Chang Yim, or more appropriately Naughty Boy, had popped out of the ditch and was heading straight for us! We had to move quickly as all the male elephants can be very dangerous. Another funny moment was with the an older herd of three laid back Ele's. Funnily enough we had been told this elephant sometimes does this but we actually witnessed it. At the park, they currently trying to build some enclosures for the male elephants so they get their own pools, as at the moment there's not enough land to ideally let them wander completely wild. This means there is a couple of tractors about which doesn't bother the elephants. But one of these old gals sometimes suddenly decides she doesn't like the tractor in the distance. So we witnessed her suddenly trunk squawk and charge at the tractor, with the other two following! They have to turn off the tractor but when she gets up to it she just prods it with her trunk and then decides she can't be bothered so walks way! On the walk we got to feed my favourite elephant, Mae Jan Peng, and listen to her nice mahout play the flute. I later bought an elephant carving of Mae Jan Peng by her mahout and its even got the earring in the ear. We had another near miss with Naughty Boy that day. We were all lined up for a group photo when suddenly I hear 'UH OH!' I look to my left and Naughty Boy is heading towards up at top speed! We all move and then briefly stop to go 'awwwww' at him interacting with the other elephants before quickly moving again! He really lives up to his name. The afternoons job was a surprise that day and it turned out not to be work at all but instead it was TUBING!! This is where you sit on an inflatable ring and go down a river over rapids and float along. Its so much fun! We piled into the back of a caged truck with our tubes and headed up stream to where the white water rafting happens. We got into the water where there were a few fast rapids and then it calmed down. I almost got beached on a rock and few people fell off but the waters really shallow so you just get back on. In fact sometimes the water was so shallow you would grate your backside on the rocks underneath and then have to stand up to find deeper water. We even had local kids trying to splash us as we floated past! When got back from Tubing, the banana truck had arrived so we quickly unloaded this whilst we were soaked before more elephant bathing (which was handy that we were soaked already) and then got ready to have a special last night traditional Thai dinner. We sat on pillows on the floor to eat around small tables, whilst kids from a local village school performed traditional Thai dance. We were all really sad to be leaving the next day after such an amazing week.
Day 7 - Last day
I got up on my final day earlier to see the sunset and was really lucky to see the best one of the whole week. It was so orange. We had normal duties that morning and I was pleased. We were doing Ele food again which meant scrubbing and chopping and peeling the elephant food. Low and behold the pumpkin AND watermelon truck turned up again on the day our group were doing food duties! I didn't mind though as I got to climb on top of the pumpkins and pass them off the truck. I did get battered by landslide pumpkins a few times though and fell off them in a heap at one point. It was probably karma for me trying to make the volunteer coordinator fall of the pumpkins he was sitting on though. After we finished all the food deliveries I felt really sad that it was my last task there and now I had to go and pack my bag to check out of my room that I was sharing. We were given certificates and I was also given the USB stick with the photo's Lek took, and after chatting with my volunteer buddies and exchanging details it was time to leave. I said goodbye to one of the elephants that was in the feeding area. I was really going to miss being able to just cuddle an elephant and see them wandering about. We all got into various minibus's and said our goodbyes before being dropped at our guesthouses in Chiang Mai city. We had all arranged to meet at the night market that evening as a final farewell which we managed but sadly we all got separated as the market was so manic, but I will definitely stay in touch with everyone. I felt like I've known everyone much longer than a week. When I was dropped back to Chiang Mai from the park, I was dropped at the Elephant Nature Park offices so I could transfer the photo's on the USB stick and return it. This turned out to be another good moment because Lek was in the offices. I got the chance to ask her about her other projects and it turns out she has small projects starting in Burma and Cambodia...both places I will hopefully be visiting and volunteering! This was probably the best experience of my life, amazing elephants, amazing people, amazing everything.