Mahout Elephant Training

We started the day at 8.30am and set of in the back of a tuk tuk for the hours journey to the Elephant camp.

Don't let the word camp make you think that these elephants are in any way mistreated, yes, it would be better to see them in the wild but the reality is many of these elephants have been rescued from poachers or the cities in Burma. From the moment we arrived we didn't see one chain or one wrongful action towards any of the elephants. If anything on this trip we witnessed a beautiful but exhausting relationship between elephant and owner.

On the way to the camp we stopped at a banana plantation where John Henry chopped down banana tree, yes, that's right, he cut down a whole tree! I just chopped some bananas off, that was difficult enough for me!

We then drove to a little village, got changed in to our uniforms (yes, we had a uniform) and had our training. We had a brief introduction to the Mahout way of life and that basically they dedicate their lives to the elephants. We were to spend the day as a Mahout but with the added bonus that we didn't have to spend the night in the jungle.

We then had to get to grips with a few words from the Karen Hill Tribe language in order to speak to the elephant. With a statue elephant our guide, Joy, showed us where to pull ourselves up, how to indicate left and right and other basic commands. We were also given a wooden stick with a blunt hook on the end, we were assured that these were solely used to give the elephant a nudge and believe me even that doesn't work sometimes if there is bamboo around!

Finally we were introduced to Boutong and Bun Peng our two elephants for the day. After learning specific commands in the Karen Hill Tribe language we had to put them to use. This was going to be fuuuuun!

CONT........

We spent about one hour practicing the different commands before we were able to go on our jungle walk and swim. There were no stairs up to a platform it was us and elephant, no ropes, nothing and I was up first. I had to stand on Bou Tong's and say "suuuung" which means up and she lifted her leg for me to climb on her back, I needed a little push! Jh was really good and just jumped on, he made it look easy.

We didn't realise how difficult it would be riding bareback and we both had a few wobbles but after an hour of using the commands repeatedly (the elephants must have thought we were stupid) we were ready to go. But, the elephants had something else on their minds... LUNCH! They munched bamboo, banana trees and we had sweet and sour chicken then we were off.

We got to decide which method we would use to get on each elephant and we both opted for the head jump... easy!

The bristles really did rub our legs even with the Mahout uniform on and with nothing to hold on to I found myself leaning on Bun Peng to keep my balance and ended up with grazed palms. Jh took to the riding well (especially having the greedy elephant) but I think we both knew that we would be aching the next day just like horse riding in Ecuador.

After a while we came to a little stream, this would be the first of many water stops, Bou Tong (jh's elephant) stopped first and began to spray herself and Jh in the process, I think they both welcomed the cool down. Then Bun Peng joined in, splashing and squirting, it was so funny but we to go, "pie, pie pie" (go, go, go) and we were back on our way.

We walked through the village with the elephants needing the odd nudge to stop them eating the villagers crops and with a hoot from the trunk Bun Peng told us she didn't like the car ahead, "how" (stop), we stopped and waited for the car to pass.

We started walking at the edge of the river bank and the bamboo was too much for them to resist. They both stood whilst their trunks went to work and in the end the tree actually fell down - "pie, pie, pie!"

Our journey was over and we'd made it to the river after a two hour walk from the small village. The time spent in the river was the best part of the day, we bathed them and they splashed their trunks, lay down and seemed so happy. The two Mahouts got in with us and had fun throwing buckets of water whilst the great elephant beneath our feet rolled over, bobbed under, stood up and down, enjoying the cold river.

It was then time to go into the jungle for the evening, each afternoon all nine elephants from the camp head to the jungle for the rest of the day and night to eat, sleep and eat some more!

An amazing experience that taught us not only about elephants but the solitary life lead by the Mahouts. Their life is the welfare of the elephants and the two we met and spent time with were fantastic along with Bou Tong and Bun Peng :)

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