Mon 20th - 26th Oct

Woke up nice and early so we could grab a decent breakfast before heading out to help the elephants. While we were planning our trip we became increasingly aware of the cruelty that surrounded the use of elephants (amongst other animals!) for tourism in Thailand. Through our curiosity we came across the Elephant Nature Park which was founded by Lek Chilert. What Lek has done for the elephants here is truly amazing. The park currently has 41 elephants, with one just having been rescued from street begging in Bangkok.

We were picked up from our hostel in Chiang Mai for the 1.5 hour drive with three others whom stayed here. As soon as we drove through the gate of the elephant sanctuary we were treated to elephants walking around the park with NO "saddle" for tourists, no nasty hooks and respectful Mahouts.

Eventually we went to our rooms, basic but it had everything you need...a bed, a fan and a mosquito net. We bathed the elephants in the river using buckets to throw water over them. They really didn't need our help but it didn't bother them and it was pretty fun.

In the evening of the first day we had a typically awkward orientation whereby everyone stood up to introduce themselves.

During the week we carried out our fair share of duties to help the park. Typically the mornings started with the delightful job of scooping up giant elephant turds or cleaning the pee from their shelters. The poo isn't actually too bad, it doesn't really smell and it's not wet or sticky either. So poo is good, pee on the other hand was rancid! And an elephants bladder is huge! Honestly, when an elephant pees it's like running a tap. Pee was like a red-ish colour, it smelt and when your sweeping it around it kinda gets everywhere, especially when someone has been given permission to use a brush and is spraying pee all over you!

If you were lucky you would be on kitchen duty. So here you get into lines and pass the pumpkins/watermelons to a trough to be cleaned - you don't want to feed the elephants dirty and contaminated food, particularly where pesticides are used to farm them. Next job is to peel the bananas into a bowl. This was strangely fun, although the first time we did this Emily wasn't too keen on how bananary her hands were getting, what you have to do next was like her worst nightmare! You then have to mush the bananas with your bare hands. I'll admit that this was kinda gross but you just have to get stuck in. Then they add skin of rice and dry corn into the mix before you make banana balls. These are then fed to some of the elephants with dietary requirements, or it acts as a method to feed them medicine.

Our afternoon duties were mainly digging holes in the dog shelters to plant some seeds. The idea is that these will grow right near the fence and stop them from seeing each other and fighting. Seems logical right, but I'm sure that these crazy dogs probably just dug them up as soon as we were done.

We had a fair bit of free time during our time here so we decided that one day we would spend this time walking some of the 400+ dogs that this place has rescued. I really wish that we had decided to start doing this sooner as some of the dogs here were in a really poor state. The volunteers here are massively understaffed, and whilst us walking the dogs was helpful because not all of them get a chance to be walked everyday, there was so much more that needed to be done to help them.

On one of the days the full time volunteers treated us. A group of us piled onto the back of the pick up and we drove down to the river to watch the elephants bathe by themselves. This was possibly one of the most satisfying moments of the week, especially whilst watching the young ones play in the water and trying not to get swept away by the current. We also witnessed the hilarious moment when one of the baby elephants fell over its' own front feet and face planting the ground...I know this makes me a rotten person, but I did get this on the GoPro and one day I will upload the video for you all to see.

Before we left Emily was speaking to Lek about teaching kids in her class about cruelty towards the elephants in Asia. ENP are great supporters of this and Emily will now be an ambassador for them in order to get the message across. ENP also provided Emily with DVD's that are child friendly as the ones we watched during our time there were horrific. These documentaries help to educate us on the process of domesticating the elephants. The process is called the 'Phajaan', or 'Breaking the Spirit' of the elephant. The elephants are brutally tortured for a few days at the age of 3, using slingshots, hooks, sticks etc, aren't fed and not allowed to sleep until they become so frightened of humans that they are obedient. Even after this the elephants are disciplined with a hook, either tugging on their ears with it or digging it into the top of their head or body. This is all done to please tourists in allowing them to ride them, see elephant shows or watch them paint or so that they can be used as working elephants for street begging or the logging industry - all of which is bad for their health, especially the logging industry (now illegal in Thailand but still practised in places like Burma).

During the week we became to understand all the elephants stories and the mahouts who look after them. One of them in particular melted our hearts - Maejanpeng worked for a wealthy family for 3 generations and when the family no longer needed her, ENP took her and her mahout in (which is very rare due to the confrontational relationship normally associated between the elephant and that mahout). Her mahout is the best one in the park - he is the first awake because she likes to get up really early and puts her to bed the way she likes - facing the sun every night. She found it hard to make friends with the any of the elephants in the herds so instead she and her mahout are best friends, always found together and are almost inseparable. He even plays the flute to her everyday! It's lovely to see a relationship like this between elephant and mahout and when you hear the flute playing you know that Maejanpeng will be very happy!

I could go on for ages about how bad this all is and some of the stories of what some of the elephants at the park have been through but I don't want to bore you and typing this all on my phone is taking forever, so I would encourage you all to just google the Phajaan and read up on it even just for just 5 minutes, if your brave enough maybe watch some of the videos on YouTube and that if you ever come across elephant trekking etc. on any of your travels to please not endorse any of it. And rather support projects like the Elephant Nature Park.

We are now back in Chiang Mai for a few days before we get a 10 hour overnight bus back to Bangkok. We have booked a flight on the 30th October to Vietnam and will be there for a couple weeks or so. We will be in Hanoi for a few days and will be visiting Halong Bay and hopefully staying on an overnight junk boat while sailing around the 3000+ islands there.

C&E