Our week working at 'The Elephant Nature park'.

We were taken to the Park, about an hour from Chiang Mai, at 8 o'clock on Monday morning. During the drive in we passed other tourist stops for elephant trekking and riding. We reached the nature park and the elephants here were roaming freely around the acres of land they now live in.

We were shown around the park by our guides Thep and Eck and were allowed to get stuck in feeding and washing the elephants! The elephants, we were told, really enjoy "bath time" in the river where we threw buckets of water at them, and a couple even went for a roll around in the deeper water. We got absolutely soaked and loved every minute!

We were later given our keys for our accomodation, the "mud huts"! They were actually very nice, considering they were basic accomodation, and the cold shower was quite refreshing after a busy day! Although i did freak out a little after a family who were staying a couple of doors down from us had a rat scurry out of one of their bags!

The next day we met Lek, the founder of the park. She was so passionate about her work and completely devoted. She talked to us about the horrific way elephants are trained for the tourism industry, and how some of them are continously mis-treated once they are at work. She also explained how elephants were used for logging in Thailand before it was banned in the 90's, these elephants were then out of work and completely neglected and cruely treated. Some eles are used for street begging in Bangkok, which is illegal but still happening, these eles are so traumatised by the traffic and people their owners sometimes drug them when they take them out to work. Nearly all of the elephants at the park have been rescued by Lek and brought here to, what she calls "elephant heaven"!

After our mornings work of scrubbing pumpkins and loading the bays for the ele's grub, we were taken for a stroll around the park. We got to meet Meadow, who's hip had been broken when her previous owners had used her for forced breeding. When she arrived at the park another elephant, had befriended her, now these two eles never leave each others sides! Also along our stroll we stopped with Lek for a while, a group of elephants, and even a baby approached us. Lek waved for us to go over and join her, so Jon and i sat and fed them food as they loomed above us, feeling us with their trunks in serach for some grub! This was propa amazing! We also went and sat in one of the mahouts (ele keeper, each ele has a mahout who looks after them) open huts as two eles wandered around us, reaching with their trunks to touch us and scratching their tummies on the side of the hut, making the whole thing rock back and forth!
Pumpkin washing is one of the jobs we have done, Poo shovelling is another, and we have also been let loose in the corn fields with a machete to chop corn! This was the fun bit, the hard bit was carrying the corn back through the field to load it on the truck! The ride back to the park was wicked, we sat on top of the corn that had been loaded on the truck and had to duck to avoid any branches that were in our path!

Its wasn't all hard work, and one evening we took huge rubber dingys to the river and went "tubeing" down stream! This was a real giggle and nearly all the volunteers had a go!

Today (11/08) we visted a local school, where Jon played footie with the boys and i made bracelets with the girls. The children were very smartly dressed in uniforms and the school was pretty big. The children were really lovely, requesting that we write our names and a little message in the their notebooks.
We've also been "tree saving"! ha! Using orange scarves, that had been blessed by monks, we set about tying these scarves around the local trees. 90% of Thais are buddhist and by wrapping these now sacred scarves around the trees, people will hopefully be put off from cutting them down, as they may worry about it bringing them bad luck.

Just being in the park was brilliant. Elephants everywhere and they were cared for so well. We went and watched the vet at work, and the trainers. The trainers are there to help when the elephants need medical care, they use techniques where the elephant is rewarded with food, for lifting a foot for example, and the elephant is never forced into performing any task and can leave the training area anytime as its completely open.

We loved every minute! Our group were also lovely and we had a wicked last night, drinking a few too many "moonshines" which is a nasty rice whisky type shot!

Our last afternoon at the park was a real highlight, the day tourists were off elsewhere, so we basically sat on our own with a cup of tea watching the ele's roam out in the park together, playing and grazing.
So sad to say goodbye.

Back in Chiang Mai now, and have been to a cooking class today! So we are now Thai chefs! ha ha! So you're all invited to come over for Thai dinner once we are home!! ha ha! Kates Pad Thai and Jons Green curry are the mutts! ha!

Hope your all good? sending you all lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxx