Chang Mai, Thailand (Elephant Nature Park)

Days 34-35, August 19-20, 2008 (No Malaria- best odds of contracting yet, though)

After the nightmare that was Bangkok, I knew that Chang Mai couldn’t be worse. Luckily, it took me about 10 minutes after I left the airport to decide that I loved Chang Mai. It is, by far, my favorite place in Thailand. I got into my hotel in Chang Mai at about 4 PM local time. My hotel was amazing. It was clean, friendly, and even has a pool. After walking around the charming town for a few hours before dark, I was happy that the friendly and welcoming residents of Chang Mai had earned redemption in my mind for the people of Thailand.

Chang Mai is a small city located up in the mountains of northern Thailand. It is actually Thailand’s second biggest city but only a fraction the size of Bangkok. It is laid back, friendly, manageable, and beautiful. No wonder it also has the densest concentration of backpackers of anyplace I’ve seen yet. People looking for an out-of-the-way place to see the real Thailand are drawn here from all over. This city is what I pictured in my minds eye when I read about Thailand in the guidebooks. I am very happy with my decision to forgo any more time in Bangkok for another day here. I am also doing a few excursions while I am here. The first of which, I am in the middle of right now.

Right now, I am in the middle of the jungle again about 75 kilometers outside of Chang Mai at a place called Elephant Nature Park. Elephants, the most revered symbol of Thailand, are in severe decline here. In the last 100 years, the population here has gone from over 100,000 to under 4,000. Most of those are domesticated animals left are used by indigenous tribes as beast of burden or by the tourism industry to haul people around on jungle treks. There are less than 1500 wild elephants left and are all relegated to Thailand’s small national park system. Even though the wild elephant is severely endangered here, there are no laws protecting domesticated elephants. They are considered livestock and are often treated brutally by their owners. Elephants have strong wills, stronger bodies, and most owners feel they need to be “broken” to be effective workers. All of the adult elephants at the park bear multiple pink scars on their heads from owners “hooking” them during training, over their backs from carrying too heavy of loads on their backs, and their legs from overly tight chains.

Elephant Nature Park is a unique place in Thailand (or probably anywhere for that matter). They take in broken and abused domesticated elephants or orphaned wild elephants and give them a place to live out their years. They train and control the elephants through positive reinforcement in which none of them need to be “broken.” It is really an amazing place. I am here to learn and interact with the elephants for two days. Day one has been completely unbelievable. Earlier today, we got introduced and comfortable with the elephants by feeding them fruit which they happily accepted.

The elephant’s mahmoots also helped us by showing which foods their elephants liked and disliked. A mahmoot is and elephant keeper. There is one mahmoot per elephant and it is a long-term arraignment often lasting several years. Strong bonds form between the elephant and the mahmoot and most of the mahmoots talk about their elephants with the pride of a father speaking about their child.

After the break-in period, we followed them down to the river and helped to give them a bath. They kneel down in the water (if they still can) and the humans scrub and rinse them. Right after they get all clean, they immediately go roll in the mud. I know it seems futile but they love it. The mud keeps the sun and bugs off their skin.

The afternoon consisted of another feeding session and bathing. After dark, we ate dinner, had a Thai lesson and learned the elephant song. I’ll put the video on you tube when I have a chance. Now it is am early bedtime in the very dark jungle. I am in a private hut and some of the dogs are scratching at the door looking for a softer, cooler place to sleep. Dogs are dogs everywhere.


Day 2 at Elephant Nature Park

This morning, I woke up to two elephants grazing behind my hut.

After, I was in a group of three that got a 3 hour tour of the entire park. I got to interact with most of the park’s elephants and hear their stories. Of the 33 elephants in the park, it is safe to approach most of them. Some are so traumatized, they trust no one except their mahmoot and nobody else can or should get close. Most of those don’t stay around the people anyway.

The stories of the elephants here, like any animal rescue, are filled with triumph and tragedy. One of the elephants, Jokia, is totally blind. She was used in a logging camp and the loggers killed her baby as to not slow down her work. She got so depressed she stopped working. The loggers shot one eye out with a sling shot to try to motivate her to work and when that didn’t do the trick, they stabbed the other one out with a knife. When the park’s owner, Lek, brought Jokia here, she didn’t know how the other elephants would respond to a blind newcomer which is something none of them had encountered. The oldest elephant and matriarch or the herd, Mae Perm, was the first to walk up and inspected Jokia’s eyes with her trunk. Mae Perm immediately accepted her into the herd, took responsibility for her care, and they haven’t left each other’s side since. The staff has even put a little wood clapper around Mae Perm’s neck so Jokia doesn’t lose her in the crowd.

Another elephant, Maximus, is the largest elephant in Thailand and almost as big as his African cousins. When Maximus was younger, he was used by his owner to beg on the streets of Bangkok and was hit and severely disfigured by a 18 wheeler truck. Maximus doesn’t move very well these days but seems to be the ladies man of the herd.

Meadow was severely disfigured after being hauling huge loads as a young elephant and has suffered a broken backs and hips.

Malai Tong had half of her back right foot blown off by stepping on a landmine while working as a logging elephant in Burma.

Hope is one of the only elephants in the park that was originally wild born. His mother was shot and killed while eating rice from a field. He is a total hell raiser. As a general rule here, if an elephant is walking directly at you, you move. The elephants don’t like to be the ones to have to make a course correction. Hope doesn’t walk; He runs everywhere. If he’s running in your general direction, you get the hell out of the way. Actually, he is the only elephant here that has to wear a bell around his neck so everyone, including the other elephants, knows when he is around. He is constantly egging on the other elephants to try to get them to play. Most of them just ignore him or put him in his place. After bath time today, however, he got on another elephant’s nerves a little too much and they had a fight. It moved down the river and we couldn’t get close but I got a few good zoom shots.

All of the young elephants are a little rambunctious. At bath time, the routine is that all of the young elephants bathe, swim around the river, get chased by their mahmoots (elephant keepers), and then all charge out of the water to roll in the mud. When you hear the cry, “Babies, babies,” you also get the hell out of the way. A young elephant is nowhere the size of their parents but they are still a ton or more.

It is funny how much the elephants are like us. While the young one’s wrestle during bath time, the older ones just want to relax, get a scrub, and not have to deal with the juvenile’s nonsense. Also, at feeding time, they all have their favorites. One of the elephants was eating pineapple. For each pineapple, she was biting off the leaves at the top and dropping them on the ground. The elephant next to her was eating the entire pineapple, including the leaves, and even reaching under the first one to eat the discarded pineapple leaves as a snack.

Beyond elephants, the park adopts any pathetic creature that shows up (which may explain why they took me in so readily). There are a herd of water buffalo, cows, cats and dogs. Some of the elephants liked the dogs but most of them just tried to kick them when one ran by. This morning, an elephant tried to kick a dog and got my leg instead. Damn dog.

If you can’t tell, I absolutely loved this experience. It was truly one of a kind. I would love to go back one day. I learned a lot and met some very interesting people. I would recommend this to anybody.