After a 2.5 hour bumpy and winding road we made it to the camp. Once there they fitted me with boots I was shown to my room to get ready to go into the jungle.
A guide showed me the way. Ok… it’s going to be another jungle. Not quite as bad as the Orangutan Trek.
A lot drier and not as difficult. At least there was a path, more or less. After about 40 minutes we met up with some elephants. It was amazing! There were 4 of them and they just about trampled on me.
The other volunteers showed up. They were watching them all morning while they waited for me to catch up. They introduced themselves and we all went walking to find a mother elephant and her baby.
Viewing the mom and her baby was a lot of fun. At certain times the baby started nursing.
Amazingly the elephants never lay down. They sleep standing up and only get 2to 4 hours a sleep at night. Most of the time they are walking and eating. They need to eat 7%of their body weight. They spend 16 to 18 hours of eating a day. What a life!
The group is great. One guy from Austria and a couple from Germany. The couple is leaving with me in a few days and the guy is staying the week.
The next day we went to a field and cut grass for the elephants.
In the afternoon we made rice balls for them. The rice balls consisted of rice, roots, tree bark and other interesting stuff (just can’tremember).
Later that afternoon 4 elephants came to eat.
Our cook was absolutely wonderful. I have to say this volunteer experience was pretty easy. Work not for that long of a tine and a good amount of rest time. It was very quiet, a real peaceful area.
On the last day we had a Thank You ceremony and then went to visit a primary school. The kids were very active and didn’t really listen when I asked them to sit or copy ne. They preferred to run and tackle each other and me.
We left for Chiang Mai after coffee and lunch. This orangiztiom is part of Elephant Nature Park. It started from a joint effort between the owner of some elephants and the desire to provide ethical elephant encounters and to have a sanctuary for rescued and abused elephants. They encourage ethical encounters. They are trying to educate the public regarding elephants. Even though elephants were used for riding and living in the past it is the continued misuse and abuse that is not ok. Getting bathed occasionally is ok but not continually every day. The breaking of an elephant’s spirit is still being done and I wish they would use more of positive training. Humans are the worse when it comes to being ethical and compassionate. So as I leave here I will carry my memories and the thoughts of Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the Africa, when he said, “perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”
And as Dr Seuss said in Horton Hatches the Egg, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent!”
