Elephant Nature Park: July 2015

Before we get started, I’d like to introduce our group- in no particular order. Oh, and we, (along with mama Jane) were the oldest in the group 🙂

Bruce and Kathleen- couple from Hawaii

Jordan and Gemma- couple from Ireland

Jane and Emily- mother-daughter duo from Cypress

Courtney and Liana- friends from DC

Elliott, Chelsea, and Alex- all from England, but traveling solo

Deniz- Switzerland

Andrea- Germany

Indyra- Belgium

Yay for Elephant Nature Park!!!

We woke up early and were dropped off by Ted and Teri at the office. After registering, we were given a T-shirt, water bottle and a number. We loaded into the vans according to our numbers and really lucked out. We didn’t get to know most of the people in our van with the exception of Alex, who we sat next to, but once we got to know each other, we realized we had a pretty amazing group. We road with our VC (volunteer coordinator), Johnny, who was one of two guys who had to deal with us all week.

When we arrived, we took a walk with Johnny around the grounds. As he was talking to us, a family of elephants came walking around the corner towards us. Johnny had his back to the elephants and was going through some basic information about the park, the elephants, and…I don’t really know what else, because I, along with everyone else, had stopped listening and were in awe of the approaching elephants. Johnny noticed our distracted looks and turned around to see the elephants- right behind him. He urgently told us to move out of the way. Some of our group thought he was kidding and moved away slowly, he became a little anxious and told us to MOVE! Once we were out of the way, we saw the family walk past with their mahout. There were three adults and one baby. One of the adults stopped to scratch herself on a concrete pylon before she was summoned by another member of her family and took off to meet them. Johnny told us that the baby was the danger. If the curious baby came up to us and became startled for some reason and gave a frightened yelp, the rest of the family would trample us to protect the baby. I was starting to realize that this experience was nothing like I had imagined. 

We continued to walk around. Johnny pointed out the different elephants and told us their names, how old they were, how long they had been at the park, any disabilities, and just about anything else we asked. After our walk was complete, it was time for lunch. We lined up with the many, many other people who were there, and sat with our group. After lunch, we met with Jodi, an American woman who has been living at the park for 12 years now. She gave us the safety talk. She basically told us that we should think of the elephants as wild. Approach only when the mahout is around, and don’t touch the babies! She gave us the history of some of the elephants. Many were blind because of the bright flashing lights of the circus. After years of performing every single day, their eyes couldn’t take it. One elephant stepped on a mine that blew up her foot, while working in the illegal mining business. This happened a few years back, but to this day, they still have to clean her foot, as it never completely healed. Another elephant had her hip broken, and as a result, one leg is about a foot short than the other. When she walks, it looks so painful to see all of her weight come crashing down on her short leg. And these are just the physical scars. All of the elephants that have been rescued have mental issues. They have been beaten and tortured for years, and this has left them scared and untrusting. The sad stories are endless. To give you an idea, there are 65 elephants at the camp, and most are handicapped in some way thanks to human actions- mostly for tourism. There are three males at the park, who are kept separate from the females. One of the boys, Jungle Boy, was actually born at the park. When his mother was pregnant, Lek saw her walking along the river carrying tourists. She could see the baby moving inside her, and asked the company to let the mother rest since she was very pregnant. They said she was under contract, and they were going to get their money’s worth. Lek paid the remainder of the contract and brought the mom to the Park where she soon gave birth to a healthy boy. When the lease was over, she had to give the mother and baby back to the owners. They wouldn’t let her buy them. She would see the mother rented out again to tour groups, with little Jungle Boy running around at her feet, scared and exhausted. Eventually, the owners sold both to Lek and they have been living at ENP ever since. 

After our orientation, we left with a very healthy respect for the elephants. We were definitely not at a petting zoo, there actually are very good reasons for their rules, no matter what unhappy day-visitors say in their reviews. Some of these elephants have killed people, with one in particular, having tried to kill 5 different mahouts (before arriving). We were rounded up and given sleeping arrangements. Javier and I had our own room and bathroom! Woo-hoo! After settling in, and checking our mosquito net for holes, we met with everyone for a welcome ceremony performed by a shaman who took all of our bad luck and sent it to the river! Before we left, we were given string bracelets which we were supposed to leave on for at least 3 days, but no more than 7. This was also supposed to bring us good luck. I don’t know about anyone else, but after working the next day, I couldn’t wait to take that thing off! 

The next morning, we were up early for breakfast. We checked the schedule and saw that we were in group “A” and that our numbers had increased. Our van was still together, but we had accumulated another van as well. Lucky for us, that van was pretty awesome as well! We were assigned Ele-poo for our morning chore.

We changed into appropriate work clothes, and headed off to the tool shed to pick up shovels and rakes to scoop the poop. We had a different leader today, Johnny was with the other group, so we were introduced to Mix. Both Mix and Johnny would take us to our different work sites, and considering these guys do this, week and after week, I was quite impressed by how hard they worked. They could have easily stood back while we worked, but instead were right there next to us the entire time. Mix had a portable speaker with him, so we had great music while we worked. We hopped into the back of the poo truck and were driven to the furthest elephant inclosure to start our day. We were quickly shooed away by a woman who was working with another elephant close by. We moved to the next set of enclosures and started to work. The poop and old food (mostly cornstalks) were already in piles for us, we just had to get the piles into the back of the truck.

The shovels started throwing poo into the truck, while the rakes moved the piles closer to the truck, and kept everything in piles. It was a team effort and everyone worked hard. Some of the shovels became overly excited when throwing the poo into the truck with one guy throwing the poo so erratically, it covered Mix from head to toe…good thing it was dry. Mix is such a good sport, and I’m sure this wasn’t the first or last time for him. Once the truck was full, Mix needed volunteers to clear out the back. I volunteered along with Bruce and Courtney. We had to ride in/on the poop to the site. Unloading was hard work, like really hard, but it gave us a chance to get to know one another.

Turns out, Bruce attends UH Manoa, lives close to where I lived when I was there, knows all of the eateries I used to frequent, and the real kicker, his girlfriend, Kathleen, is a teacher at the same school I worked at as a college student. I told him my stories about being a broke college student where on payday, after work, my roommates (who also happened to be my coworkers) and I, would walk across the street, deposit our checks and buy a whole chicken with sides. It was such a treat for us, and something we always looked forward to. As I’m telling Bruce this story, he gets really excited and says, “Friday night Safeway chicken, $5.99!!!” HA HA! 

After we finally shoveled all the poo out of the back of the truck, with Mix’s help of course, we drove back to the group who had already prepared for the next load. On the way there, Bruce told me, “You have to talk to meet my girlfriend when we get back.” All of the similarities were just too fun. When we, arrived, I looked for Kathleen, who found me first, and started talking to me about Hawaii. Apparently, while I was shoveling poo and talking to Bruce, Javier had been getting to know Kathleen and told her I went to college in Hawaii. This was the beginning of a fun friendship. We shoveled poo until there was none left, and when Mix asked for volunteers to clean out the truck, I volunteered again, along with Javier, Jordan and Elliott. This time, they guys really wanted to work, so I took on a more cheerleading role instead 🙂 

Mix had told the group to go to the ele kitchen to help with food prep. When we arrived, our group had dispersed. There was already a large group of young people who were unloading a watermelon truck, and there really wasn’t a need for more people. After washing my arms and hands, Mix found me and told me to help unload the truck. I think Javier and I ended up being the only one’s in our group that joined the party line. Mix jumped in the back of the truck and started throwing watermelons, we joined the lines of kids tossing watermelons to each other and had good fun. By the time we finished, it was lunch time. We noticed many of our group members had showered, while we were just as stinky and sweaty as ever. 

After lunch, our afternoon chore was to plant grass. We hopped into the back of a different truck, armed ourselves with hoes, and drove across the river. We had really lucked out with the shade while shoveling the poo, there was decent cloud cover here and there, and when there wasn’t, we could use the enclosures to shade ourselves. Planting grass however, proved to be much hotter and uncomfortable. There was no cloud cover and we were baking in the sun. We basically had to hoe a line, put these stalks inside, and cover the line. We did this one after another.

I noticed that about this time, a lot of people started slowing down, with the exception of Jordan. This Irish man hoed more than everyone combined. He was like a machine. It was impressive. We took plenty of water breaks under a tree, and I think Johnny took pity on us, and let us quit early. 

When we retuned, we were told to change our clothes because we would be bathing the elephants. We didn’t actually bathe the elephants. They stood in the river while we threw buckets of water on them. It was definitely more for us, than them.

At first, some of us were a little disappointed that we wouldn’t get to scrub the elephants like other tours do, but the whole point of this place is to allow the eles to be as free as possible, and where in the wild is an elephant going to be scrubbed down with soap and a brush??? After a couple throws, both Javier and I just watched. We were just so happy to be able to sit and watch these amazing animals. When we were done, they allowed us to take pictures with the eles. 

We had free time until dinner. Javier and I had seen the workers and some volunteers playing soccer the day before, and found out that they play everyday at 5pm, weather permitting. A little before 5, we grabbed the ball and started passing it around. We played 6 a side and rotated through four different teams. In the final game, it was workers vs volunteers, and I’m happy to say, we held our own. Although, I have to admit, I rotated as goalie, so Elliott could be on the field, and the workers were all guys and afraid of hurting me. It definitely worked to our advantage.

We were late for dinner because no one wanted to quit, so we had to eat the leftovers. Normally, I was dressed in pants and my mosquito jacket for dinner, but because of soccer, I only had on shorts and a tank top. I inhaled my food, so I could get into the shower. In the less than 10 minutes it took me to get and eat my food, I ended up with 10 new bites. After a shower, we met back with the group for a Thai culture night. Our VCs took turns teaching us how to count to 10 in Thai, some simple Thai words, along with cultural dos and dont’s. At the end, they taught us the elephant song…Chang, chang, chang… 🙂

It was a busy day and we were exhausted. We went to bed early and had one of the best sleeps in our lives. 

Breakfast at 7 and today was corn-cutting day. We were advised to wear long pants, long sleeves, and an extra shirt to wrap around our neck. We sat in the back of an empty truck for the hour-long drive to our destination. As we were driving, we noticed that the tree branches where whipping the top and sides of the truck. We knew we would be filling up this truck and riding back on top of the corn, so we were all a little concerned about losing an eye or a head. 

When we arrived, Johnny passed out machetes and sickles to everyone. I, along with Andrea, had run off to the side for a quick pee, and by the time we came back to the group, there were no sharp objects left. Johnny told us that we would start carrying the bundles of corn to the truck. There were already other workers there, and several bundles lying about, so there was plenty of work to be done.

We started carrying, and everyone else started cutting. I immediately saw the necessity to cover the skin. There were bugs everywhere- spiders, ants, and all sorts of creepy crawly things. I got used to them quickly and started brushing spiders off of me like it was nothing, and for those that don’t know me…I HATE SPIDERS. The stalks were so itchy and caused a skin breakout. We were told that it wasn’t the actual corn that causes this, but the pesticides they use…gross. Carrying the bundles of corn was hard. Some were heavy, and those that weren’t, we doubled up to get the job done quicker. The most difficult part was walking back to the truck- the uneven ground, the sharp short corn stalks sticking up from the ground, and the plants with tiny thorns that can go right through your pants! I didn’t cut the corn. I didn’t want to. I liked the physical labor of carrying the bundles. Javier cut the corn for a while and said his sickle sometimes would get stuck in the stalk, and as he was trying to free it, he would inadvertently pull out the entire stalk, roots and all. Oops.

After a short time, I looked around and noticed that only Johnny and I were carrying, Andrea had retired to cutting. Soon enough, Liana, Courtney, and Javier joined me, and we worked out a system of sorts. Everyone was carrying two bundles. The would carry one on each shoulder, but it was sometimes difficult to get them both on. I started moving the bundles from the middle to the sides where there was a small dirt walkway, and therefore much easier to transport. They would watch pick up on bundle, and I would load them up with a second. I was quite impressed by them. After our final “union break,” Johnny told everyone to stop cutting, and carry. Everyone worked hard. The boys loved it. Instead of carrying one bundle on each shoulder, I started carrying two on one shoulder and found it to be much easier. I was feeling pretty strong until I looked over and saw the local workers pick up four or five bundles at once…never mind. We worked until the two trucks were fully loaded and sat down for lunch. By now, my neck was itching and burning- the welts and pain lasted for the remainder of the week.

 

After lunch, it was time to go back. We climbed up the truck and sat on the corn. At the top, we were about 10 feet up, and to quote Javier, “Our parents would not approve.” 🙂 We huddled towards the front and sat with the spiders and creepy crawlers. I still had a glove on, and after getting smacked with tree branches, heard Gemma yelling, I turned to see a praying mantis on Jordan’s shorts. He didn’t want to touch it either, so I picked it up with my gloved hand and gave him a new home. I found all kinds of cool creatures in the corn. I picked up this furry caterpillar thing that was sitting on a leaf and showed some people, Johnny said, “That one’s poisonous, get rid of it,” and overboard he went. At one point I turned around to see a rather large black bug crawling on Jane’s shoulder, so I called to Javier and asked him to remove the bug. He did, but only after taking a picture of it. Jane meanwhile, didn’t even bat an eye.

At one point, while speeding down the highway at full speed, I hear Javier yelling, “THIS IS A SAFETY HAZARD!!!” and then “FREEDOM!!!!” over and over again. I looked back to see what he was yelling about, and everyone was howling with laughter. I don’t know what possessed him, but he was having the time of his life, and I was thinking…he’s gone insane. We were rained on, smacked with tree branches, crawling with bugs, but alive when we arrived back at ENP. This was a hard day, but really fun. 

We were free for the rest of the day. They offered us to go tubing. It went like this:

Johnny: Who wants to go tubing? 

Me: You mean, in the same river we “bathed” the elephants? The elephant toilet?

People around me: Yep, that’s the one. 

Someone close by: There are snakes in the river. 

Someone else around me: So-and-so said there was a snake that swam across his lap while tubing yesterday. 

Me: Yeah, I think I’ll pass. 

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Turned out, no one went tubing because of a torrential downpour that happened about 30 minutes later. 

Javier and I retired to our room where we did some very necessary laundry. We relaxed until dinner. Soccer was cancelled due to rain, so we opted for a massage instead. They offer three types of massages at the park. It is independently run, and even though it is on park property, the park does not get any of the profits. Just another way Lek is providing local people with opportunities. The massage felt great. Well, at least mine did, Javier on the other hand, was slightly tortured by his lady. The only problem was that with the hundreds of cats roaming everywhere, the massage beds and pillows are covered in hair. By the end of the massage, I had a difficult time breathing and was more worried about my nose gushing than I was enjoying my massage. Lesson learned.  When we arrived at dinner, we started hearing the stories of the day. Some of our group members had come to the dining area to sit and watch the elephants. Turns out that there was a group of Chinese tourists in the park. During the torrential rain, they all put on their plastic ponchos and were holding the hoods tightly over their heads while walking in a line going who knows where. According to different reports we heard, there was no guide with them. Because of the downpour, they were all looking down trying to protect their faces when one of the baby elephants came up and startled them. Some of the women in the group screamed, which scared the baby, who yelped, which alerted the mama and nanny who came charging. The group was apparently too stunned to move. People on the dining platform said it happened so quickly that no one even had the chance to yell at them to move. As the elephants charged closer, the tour group finally scattered, running through mud and puddles everywhere. Everyone we talked to said they thought for sure people were going to be trampled- it was that close. 

 After dinner, we hung out with the cool kids until it was time for bed. This night, we met Sam, a guy from the other group who, on his free time, would sketch pictures of the elephants. He was really good. 

We were late for breakfast the next morning, and noticed that our table that had been growing over the past day, had finally been overrun. We found a new spot next to Courtney, Liana, Bruce, and Kathleen. We hadn’t seen Bruce or Kathleen the previous day, because they had been moved to another area, which was a bummer since I really enjoyed working and talking with them. 

Today was ele-food day. We took off our boots and put on sandals and prepared to get wet. We started by moving squash into a big stone tub, where some members of our group would wash the squash. These veggies were also full of bugs, and Courtney saved many a snail from drowning. Once the squash were clean, we switched to watermelon. We unloaded the watermelon truck by throwing the watermelons down the line and onto the shelf. I was towards the front of one line and kept hearing watermelons dropping at the back. Our mother-daughter duo, Jane and Emily were having a moment of frustration. The next time I looked back, I was no longer throwing to Chelsea, but Jane. The problem was solved, and more watermelon made it onto the shelves 🙂

Towards the end, Hardy, another friend, had to leave the watermelon truck, so I jumped in. This was much more difficult than the assembly line. I was getting much dirtier and my arms were sore in no time. Once the truck was empty, Mix had us making a few rice balls and tamarind balls to feed the elephants. Some of the eles are on special diets and can only eat certain things. The one’s with stomach problems get tamarind balls. We took our small bucket of balls and made our way to the eles. We had been watching the day visitors feed the eles every day, but we hadn’t had the opportunity yet. We were really happy, and a little nervous to be up close and personal with the elephants. There’s a small family of three elephants that roam together. They are all old ladies and two of them are partially blind, and Lucky (Javier’s favorite), is completely blind.

We were told to be sure to stand on the elephant’s good side so she could see us, but when it came to Lucky, we had to call to her to let he know we were close, and then touch her trunk, which is her signal for food. It was interesting, one elephant wanted the balls on the tip of her trunk, while another wanted it just past, so she could smash it, and used her trunk as a plate of sorts, using the tip of her trunk as a hand to grab the food in smaller pieces and throw it in her mouth. It was a little sad. The partially blind elephants could see when no one was holding food out to them and would walk away, but Lucky waited a little bit longer, waving her trunk from side to side, waiting for someone to give her a treat.

After lunch with Bruce and Kathleen, we met for our afternoon chore. Today, we were cleaning up the park, which basically means we have to rake up and discard some elephant grass and corn stalks that the eles carry out of their enclosures and leave in the field. At this point, we had already lost Bruce, Kathleen, and Alex, and Jordan, Gemma, and Deniz were volunteering with the dogs, so there were only a handful of us left.

We still had a good time. Javier, Jane and Emily bonded over their support of Manchester City. Jane, by the way, is a bad-ass mama. She worked just as hard as the hardest workers and harder than most. She really is a great example, not only to her daughter, but to all of us. I was more than impressed by her willingness to get down and dirty, and her positive attitude while doing it. 

When we raked up a few piles, Johnny gave us the green light to take the rest of the afternoon off. We were really close to the dogs, and decided as a group, to reconvene and volunteer to walk the dogs for their afternoon exercise. We all walked over together and got right on it. Javier and I both had dogs in isolation because of ringworm. I was told that mine, Lennon, was very friendly with people, but can be a little dog aggressive- which he definitely was. My solution…run him, which more or less worked. After a few laps, we gave the dogs back and offered to walk some more. Keep in mind, there are over 450 dogs there, and I’m not sure how many of those needed to be walked at that time. We were led to an enclosure with three dogs. Javier and I each got the two active ones, and Emily had the old lady of the bunch.

Our dogs were young with a lot of energy. While Javier and I ran up and down the street with our dogs, Emily’s dog barely walked at all. She couldn’t be bothered. It was pretty funny. It started raining. I needed to rest, so I gave Javier my dog, and he ran with both up and down, up and down. They were happy pups. When we returned them, we offered to walk more, but were told that all the dogs that needed walking had been taken care of. We waited outside for everyone to show up. It was really cool. No one showed any interest in leaving the group behind. We talked about our dogs, our day, and when Deniz and Gemma came out, they told us about their day. Once Jordan came out, our group was together and we all walked back to the elephants.

On the way, Jordan and Gemma showed us an enclosure with three dogs. All three have disabilities. I actually saw one while we were cleaning up the park, running around with wheels for back legs. Jordan told us that all three dogs have a parasite that causes paralysis, but they can heal and have a normal life if they are able to fight it off before their first year of life. After one year, their bones and joints set in whatever position. One of the dogs is able to walk without assistive devices, but not very well, another dog requires and brace, and the third needs the wheels. Their floor is smooth tile, so they don’t get skin breakdown when they drag themselves from place to place. It was very sad, but at the same time, it made me happy that they have people who will take care of them no matter what their condition. 

We relaxed for the rest of the night, again, no soccer due to rain. Javier was very sad about this. Instead, we went out the the verandah, and watched the afternoon monsoon come in. At one point, Jordan came out of his room and told us he was going to put on some swim shorts and run to the dining area to grab an umbrella, and that he would pick one up for us as well. What a great neighbor!!! The cool kids’ table was, and had been, fully booked, so for dinner we had been eating with Bruce and Kathleen, which I enjoyed. We spent all day with the group, and while it was fun, I looked forward to spending time with Bruce and Kathleen. We would share stories of the day. They were doing the work of a volunteer who has spent two weeks at the park. Normally, the first week is all the stuff we were doing, and the second was more time with the eles, doing what they call, enrichment. Bruce and Kathleen were pulled out after the morning of our first work day, so they had been experiencing things that we didn’t get a chance. They told us that they had gone into the bull pen to help feed the bulls, and saw first hand just how aggressive, and therefore potentially dangerous, they are. I looked forward to our meals with Bruce and Kathleen, and even though they were doing some cool things, I don’t think we would have wanted to leave our group- even if it meant we would have to shovel poo for the rest of the week, which, by the way, we did. 🙂

In the morning, we combined forces. During this whole week, all of the weekly volunteers had been split into two groups. The rest of our group already knew them (it was they who took over the tables :),  but we had not. They had us shoveling poo together. We grabbed our tools and set off. As it turned out, this group was pretty cool too! Poo shoveling was quick, and we were all told to meet back to go to a school. We loaded into several vans and were driven to a local primary school.

Javier and I were late, but so were Gemma and Jordan, so we, along with a driver, our buddy Johnny, made the short drive blasting old school tunes provided by Javier. At the school, we were able to interact with the kids. There were some rooms that were used to sell things like; postcards, hand-made bracelets, and tea, as well as opportunities to play games with them, read with them, or just practice english. We had bracelets made, and as we walked around, we took pictures of some of our group members interacting with the children before getting involved in a game of soccer-volley using a hollow, woven ball made of thin sticks. It was a really lovely way to spend the hour before having to return. 

Upon arrival, we were told we would get to walk with the elephants! We split again into our two groups with Mix as our leader. As we walked around, we saw many day-visitors interacting with the elephants. Having spent almost a week with the eles, we had a very healthy respect for them, their history, and what they are capable of. The day-visitors, did not. There were maybe forty people around a family. There was a baby, two adults, and one mahout in sight. Nothing bad happened, but we all stood back looking at this sight feeling like it was a disaster waiting to happen. The people are not paying attention half of the time, and while Johnny and Mix are very good at moving us out of the way, the day trip guides don’t keep as close an eye. At one point, the mahout ran off to deal with an adult elephant leaving the baby alone. The baby was going wherever it pleased, including into people who weren’t paying attention. It could have easily happened that the baby could have hurt someone, or startled someone, and all it would have taken is a yelp from that baby. Mix was watching nervously. Thankfully, everyone, including baby ele, had a great time, and all’s well that ends well.

We continued to walk around the grounds. We came to our favorite family of blind and partially blind eles. We fed them some rice balls and tamarind balls and took pictures. We walked over to another small group of eles and decided to take a group photo. It took a while due to elephant movement, but we were all able to sit on a log with one of the elephants at the end. After the photo, everyone stood up and were standing around. I noticed that the elephant would use her foot or trunk and push down on the log. The log was bent so it acted as a sort of see-saw. I went and sat at the opposite end, and when I did, I sank to the ground. After only a few seconds, the elephant pushed down on the log and up I went. She started pushing me up and down as I sat there. She was playing with me!- Or maybe just with the log, but I’ll take it! Javier started taking some pictures, and before you knew it, it was the new photo op- we all took turns.

We continued on to a family that had a baby. The baby was awesome. She would play with everything and anything. Some of the other elephants were also playing with each other. It was a very happy time. Then they were on the move, and we had to run, some of us ran right through a swampy area, getting ourselves soaked just to get out of the way. We moved on to the bull pen. We had to stand at a distance because the bulls will throw rocks and sand. One of the mahouts was feeding Jungle Boy through the fence, and he with his big long tusks, was just gorgeous. After a short time, another bull came into view, Hope. Hope is known to be a little naughty, and as soon as he arrived, started throwing rocks and sand across the way at Jungle Boy. 

Side note: The bulls are kept away from the females. They are very aggressive, and as Jodi put it, the old grandmas don’t like being chased after by a young bull. The bulls are also kept away from each other. They have their own large enclosure with their own pool to swim, but they are let out separately for their safety. This situation is not ideal for Lek, but it is the way it has to be for now. Her short-term goal is to release the bulls into the wild, but there is always the chance that they will be recaptured, or killed for their ivory. While Lek obviously hates this alternative, she does not want her bulls to live their lives in captivity. Ultimately, she wants to have enough land where all the elephants can run free. It would be treated like a safari of sorts. There would be no petting or feeding, but simply a place where the animals can be free and protected. I really, really hope she can achieve this some day. 

As we were walking around, Javier says, “It’s like Jurassic Park here.” And he’s absolutely right, the elephants are free to walk and run wherever they please, and we had the opportunity to be right next to them one minute, or run for our lives the next 🙂 Towards the end of our walk, we could see a mahout chasing a baby elephant. The little girl was running wild and free and the mahout was trying to catch up to her and lead her back to the group. As we watched and laughed, the baby started coming toward us. Mix put us on alert and we started moving backwards. There was still a safe distance between us, but as she came closer, her mahout sprinted next to her and with all his body weight, threw himself into her side. He bounced off her, and she made a left-hand turn 🙂 As we concluded our tour, we kept an eye on the little rascal, and saw her finally return to her family- on her own terms, of course. 

That night, after dinner, we gathered around to watch a documentary about the elephants. I think the CD needed to be cleaned because it kept skipping, but it skipped the brutal parts, which I was okay with. Afterward, we all sat around a table and Hardy pulled out his guitar and played some tunes for us. We sang, we talked, we reminisced. The week was coming to an end, and none of us were ready to leave. 

The next morning was big group ele-poo shoveling. When we arrived at the enclosure, one of the elephants was still inside. When her mahout arrived in the morning, she wouldn’t get up. This old gal is in her 80’s. By the time we arrived, she was up and moving around.

The vet had started an IV behind her ear, and she was receiving, what looked like, a liter of saline and electrolytes through human-looking blood tubing. I was intrigued. I asked the vet what gauge IV he used. I thought for sure they would use a harpoon for a needle, but he said she had a 20 gauge IV, and the absolute biggest they use is a 16. For those unfamiliar, I have put bigger IVs in humans! 

After the poo was shoveled, Johnny needed volunteers to dump the dump. Javier and I again volunteered, and when we arrived at the dump site, Johnny asked us if we wanted to take a break to watch a family of elephants bathe in the river. Of course!!! We walked to the side of the river and watched in awe as a family of 6 including a baby and youngster played in the water. It was beautiful. Even just watching for a few minutes, one can immediately see the personalities, the happiness, and playfulness of these girls. We stayed as long as we could until Johnny reminded us that there was poo with our names on it. We quickly cleared out the truck. We had gotten good, but since it had been raining, everything was much heavier than on previous days, so it took a little more effort. We returned to the group and finished up. 

The rest of the day was ours. We took a group photo, but sadly most of our group was gone at this point. On top of Bruce, Kathleen, and Alex leaving at the beginning of the week. On this day, Jordan, Gemma, Elliot, and Deniz went on a jungle walk with the elephants for a documentary. Andrea had decided to work with the dogs all day, so all that was left of our group was me, Javier, Jane, Emily and Chelsea. Maybe we can photoshop the others. 🙂

That afternoon, Javier was able to play soccer again. I went down to watch, and it was volunteers vs local boys. It looked like a pretty good game. I went back to get another massage, this time armed with my towel. After dinner, we met in the conference room for a presentation by Lek. She started by a quick introduction followed by a 4 minute video. Those 4 minutes felt like 4 hours. It couldn’t end soon enough for me. I could only watch for maybe the first minute. My eyes filled with tears and I had to stop watching. I would look up every now and then, but couldn’t bear to watch. To say the video is heartbreaking does not even come close to the horror it captures. Everyone was visibly crying, with some people sobbing. It was truly horrific. It was only 4 minutes. 

The video was compiled by Lek herself. She wanted to document first hand the torture these animals suffer for work and tourism. She then presented us with a slide show with all the different ways elephants are exploited. She told us personal stories of the things she has seen, what she has endured- from jail, to death-threats, to losing her friends, family, children. If everyone watched this short video, they would think twice before going to an elephant show, riding an elephant, or buying an elephant painting. She told us a story of a young Englishman who came to her asking for an elephant painting. He said his girlfriend wanted one, and would kill him if he returned from Thailand without one. After trying to explain to him what it takes to “teach” an elephant to paint, he said he didn’t care. He was going to buy his girlfriend a painting. As a last resort, she told him that if he gave her 2 minutes of his time to watch a video, she would personally walk him to a place to buy an elephant painting if that’s what he wanted. After two minutes, the man adamantly said there was no way his girlfriend was going to get a painting, even if it meant a breakup. It only took 2 minutes. 

After a very somber presentation, we had a going away dinner with traditional performances by the local school children. After dinner, we all hung out for our last night.

It was our departure day, but that doesn’t mean we get the day off! No ele-poo today. Today, we would be throwing watermelons, and I do mean throw. We had to unload the shelves of water melon into the water trough for washing and then had to empty an arriving water melon truck. We would normally stand side-ways and toss the watermelons to each other. Today, we took a different approach. I received the watermelons the usual way, but instead of standing sideways, I faced froward. I threw the watermelons over my head, where they were not caught, but alley-ooped over the next guy’s head, and where Sam would catch and place in the water trough, or would alley-oop himself, into the water, splashing everyone. At one point, the music changed, and I heard some chatter behind me, when I looked back, I saw Javier and Emily washing watermelons dancing side-to-side to the beat of the music. It was so cute! I was so mad I left my phone in the room. All this to say, everyone was in a great mood. We were having fun, lots of fun. 

At last it was time to go. There were hugs all around, information was exchanged, and good-byes were said. 

In the end, I truly believe that after our experience, no one in our group feels the need to touch, feed, bathe, or would even think about riding an elephant. We would, in a heartbeat, go back and work for these elephants.  Lek is running an amazing program. There is a sensitive balance between appealing to the tourist and protecting the elephants. If you don’t offer tourists an opportunity to at least, touch, feed and bathe an elephant, there’s a good chance that they will choose another tour that is truly cruel to elephants. Lek relies on visitors and volunteers to keep her park running. She receives no government help, so she needs the tourists. That being said, having spent a week with these magnificent creatures- seeing them walking around freely, eating, playing, I have a completely different understanding. I don’t need to touch them. It is so selfish of me to think that I should have the opportunity to do such a thing. The torture these animals have to endure just so that I can be close to them, let alone touch them, is not worth it. I give people the benefit of the doubt. Before this, I was ignorant and had absolutely no idea how they “trained” the elephants. Now that I know, I could never support this type of thing. We messaged Mix asking him for the video that we saw. He said he could send it to us, but it is explicitly to show family and friends and cannot be posted online for copyright reasons. Fair enough, so we’re putting up another video we found online to give you an idea. It’s worth a watch. 

In closing, we all have our own values and morals, and diversity is a beautiful thing. However, there are some things that are objectively true, and torturing animals for any reason, yes, even so humans have the opportunity to touch and play with them, is objectively, wrong. We cannot thank ENP enough for the opportunity to live among these beautiful gentle giants. It was truly a life-changing experience, and one of the best weeks of this once-in-a-lifetime adventure we are living. If anyone is planning on going to Thailand and wants to experience elephants. I cannot think of a better way. Not only will you be supporting a great cause, but you will, hands-down, have the time of your life!

To see more Pictures of the Elephant Nature Park, click HERE.

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