Saturday, February 21, 2009

Hangin' with the Chang Gang (Chang means Elephant in Thai)

Val really wanted to go to something or other with elephants and she had read about a rescue place online while we were still in Canada. There are all sorts of 'eco-treks' here that involve elephant shows and rides but we weren't really keen to get involved with anything that used the elephants as exhibitions etc. We finally came across a store that is the ticket booth for the Elephant Nature Park, the very one that Val had read about. You can only buy tickets directly from them unlike other activity here where you can buy from your hotelier or tourist bureau. Anyway, a day at the park was twice as expensive as one of the trek places but we figured it was like a donation to the elephant rescues. So we bought our tickets and went the next day.

Bright and early again with a 8 am pick up. First our van stopped at a fruit market to load up on the bananas that we would feed to 'our' elephant. The 9 guests had to do the loading. Then up the mountains to the valley that house the elephants. A bit of back story here. A woman named Lek started rescuing a few injured and orphaned elephants in 1995. They also have cats, dogs, buffalo, pigs, a horse and probably other abandoned animals. The dogs and cats are up for adoption, uh-oh.


The dogs are not afraid of the elephants.

She was up to 4 when some kindly American donated a half million so that she could buy enough land for the space she needed. Elephants are big you know. So she bought the valley and another area close by that they call 'elephant heaven' which is jungle where the elephants go three times a week to learn to forage etc so that eventually the healthy ones can be released back into the wild. Now they have 38 elephants, quite a few of them are handicapped, there is one blind one, one with a broken back, a huge male that was hit by a 18 wheeler who broke both of his front legs (very sad to watch him and the broken backed one walking around).


The big broken elephant, leaning on his buddy

There are two little babies (9 months) and several juveniles that have been orphaned.


Mom and baby



Elephant



More elephants



White elephant, they used to automatically be the property of the king. They may still be for that matter, they mentioned that this one was on loan

We started our day at the farm on the platform. This is where the elephants come twice a day to have 'treats'. Each elephant gets his or her favourite fruit or veg in a big basket.


Ready for snack time.

Our elephant liked bananas and cucumbers with the occasional fig thrown in. We got to hand feed her and it was pretty cool, as you can imagine.


Val feeding bananas to our elephant

They are pretty tame as they all came from a domesticated situation, farming, treks, or street begging. Only one was born in the jungle, Hope, so he has to wear a bell because apparently, he is 'naughty'. Each elephant has a mahout (handler, to make sure you aren't killed. The elephants are like dogs with their mahouts, they follow them around and listen to instructions.


Like a puppy

Then when feeding time is over, they all wander out to the fields to have some grass or dust bath.


Out in the valley



Dust bath

Apparently, when they all arrived, even though they aren't related, they all immediately broke up into 5 family groups and the handicapped ones all have a 'protector' that adopted them and keeps them safe. We could watch them from afar from the platform while we had a mostly veggie buffet lunch. Val was in heaven because there were at least 6 types of noodles.

After lunch it was bath time. The non-naughty, healthy elephants were led to the river and so were we. Once the elephants were in the water we were allowed to join them and chuck buckets of water on them.





If they lay down we could scrub them with brushes. It was pretty exciting to be right there with them, no platform railing between you and a ton or two of animal. They are alot smaller than the African elephants but still pretty impressive. The elephants decided when bath time was over, they would just get up and leave. good enough.


Hello?... apparently we are interesting too.

Then we all piled into a high platform over the river and waited for the babies to arrive. The first one came with his mother and another 'family' member. What is it about the babies, irresistible. Millions of pictures later, they left and the next baby and family arrived. I can tell already this baby is going to be naughty too. Coming right up to people, getting stuck under the platform, not wanting to leave, a born performer.


Baby One with Mom


Baby two and Mom

After bath time, we were invited to watch a video on Thai elephants. They showed how domesticated elephants are 'broken' or as they call it here 'crushed'. I will spare you the gory details, I had my eyes closed for 90% of it anyway but we were very glad we skipped the 'trek' tours and went with the extra bahts to go to this place. We could tell they were very torn on what to advise the tourists. Our guide was very against street begging and elephant painting (the elephant paints, not you painting the elephant) but they were cautiously in favour of the trek places. I figured it is because without the tourism trade, 1000s of elephants would be out of work and abandoned. No one feeds an elephant that is just a pet, it is way too expensive (ask Homer Simpson). Anyway, one more snack and another bath. The second bath was better because most of the guests had left by then so it was only our small group left. Val stayed on dry land this time. Something about getting hit on the back of the leg with balls of dung floating by.


In the doctor's office



A trunk (in case you couldn't tell)


Mom and baby (there can never be too many pictures of baby elephants)



Elephant's eye
We were dropped back at our guesthouse after 5 and by then I was pretty exhausted. I have been fighting a cold for a day or two. We just had a quick dinner at a road side stand and were in bed by 8.

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