It is no hidden affair. Elephant tourism is huge business in Thailand and other Asian countries. The prospect of seeing an elephant in the flesh is incredibly exciting but like many animals used for human entertainment, they have been on the raw end of human-inflicted cruelty.
In our short time in Thailand, we saw a number of elephants being sorely mistreated: tourists lumbered on their backs, their mahouts (trainers) using hooks on elephants' ears and heads to keep them in check. While our first exposure to this was actually in Chiang Mai, the scale witnessed in Phuket was so upsetting. Elephant after elephant. One can't have been any older than 2 or 3, stood with its leg bound by a rope while tourists walked by. It was truly heart breaking. Like the ivory trade and elephant poaching, it begs the question "How do we stop this?", particularly when there is so much money to be made and when for tourists to take part in these unethical "attractions" it is so cheap! Only a few hundred Baht, barely a tenner. In fact, the day we passed the elephants on the way to somewhere else, we'd searched the road outside of our hotel to barter taxi fares to see a Buddha statue and it worked out cheaper to have attended a full day's events including to trek on the backs of elephants than it was to get the taxi to our destination that was 30 minutes away and back. Signs and flyers for the Phuket Fantasea shows, with elephants being ridden for circus like entertainment littered the streets- the name of which caused conflict with the name for my blog, it felt somehow dirtied by this but thinking upon it, perhaps it is just. How have we allowed this to continue to be real life?
It took a lot of research into finding the most ethical "sanctuary" that we could. Sanctuaries were established to buy out elephants from their keepers, who were in the utmost desperation and rehabilitate them so that they can enjoy as much of what is left of their lives in peace, in as much of their own environment as possible and in as healthy condition as they can be. There is still a lot of contention surrounding this, however. Not all who label themselves as a sanctuary, are one. We can’t be naive enough to think that. And it’s not as easy as “Oh well if we release all elephants in captivity back into the wild, everything will be solved!” Because that’s not going to happen; there’s still too much money involved and it is likely that many elephants wouldn’t all be able to survive being ‘set free’ due to their trauma and physical damage and those who could be reintroduced may end up back in the system because of greed.
Even now, I still feel slightly conflicted about the whole thing- remove one source of money away and the next source will be exploited. Are elephant sanctuaries the next source of income? Is it all a facade? Are we just playing into their hands and taking part in another form of entertainment? All we could hope was that even if it the circumstances were not perfect yet, that we could at least contribute to a change. If there is enough money in caring for the elephants instead of using them for logging or riding, then that is how the change can start. Then maybe that can transform into protected reserves and maybe once the captivity of elephants is not profitable and attitudes alter, we can see a real resolution. After all, we have caused this.
We chose to support Chiang Mai's Elephant Nature Park, a rescue and rehabilitation centre and elephant sanctuary and chose to participate in one of its Saddle Off projects: Pamper a Pachyderm. We hope we made the right call because we had the most amazing day.
The Pamper a Pachyderm project was founded in 2014 by a lady called Muoy. She once worked with local ‘Elephant tuk-tuks’ but having seen the neglect and maltreatment, decided she no longer wanted to be a part of problem and the project was born with the support of ENP. She has currently adopted two lovely ladies, Happy and Sa Ard, with her project raising the much needed funds from visitor fees to help provide them with the most enriched, safe and carefree retirement any elephant from their backgrounds could have hoped for, without the involvement of ropes or hooks. Each elephant had received a specific recovery plan prior to their involvement in the project to enabled them to gain back as much of their lives as was possible.
Our day started off a little damp. The monsoon rains fell pretty hard during our ride to the project site but had fortunately began to fizzle out as we arrived. The warm and wet climate encouraged one thing: mosquitoes! So we doused ourselves in repellant before swiftly washing it off our hands as we were about to make a breakfast feast. This started with a huge quantity of watermelons that had to be cut in just the right way to help the elephants digest them as they had few of their teeth left and we checked for rotten fruit; nothing but grade A produce would do. We then mixed up batches of what was probably the equivalent of those protein balls you can buy but on a giant scale. Full of rice, bananas, tamarind and some watermelon among the ingredients that the elephants would naturally be able to source with the use of 2 eyes, we smooshed the mixture together to form balls the size of large oranges.
Now please don't mistake me, these ladies are provided with enough food to keep them healthy but it doesn't stop their elephant-sized appetite for breakfast! They could smell it and having power-walked swiftly to the buffet table, promptly presented their trunks for loading and the feasting began. Our table service was perhaps not as attentive as they would have liked; its not every day that you’re waiting upon such noble of guests and it was distracting trying to take take it all in and appreciate being in their presence whilst still remembering to pick up more food as they were often shovelling in the food quicker than we could reload. As I mentioned above, we had arrived on the scene during the beginning of monsoon season. As such, the ground around us was saturated and muddy from the morning deluge. The elephants were muddy. Their trunks were muddy and so 60 seconds into their breakfast banquet and an unexpected trunk side swipe meant that we too were muddy: arms, tops, GoPros, there was nothing left clean! It was hilarious.
As we fed, Muoy and our lovely guide Patrick explained a little about the elephants’ histories; the elephants bore scars reminding us all of their hardships and traumas-Happy more so as she was blind in her left eye from a mahout hook and her tail was cut short after an injury caused by forced mating.
Breakfast was followed by the daily stroll through the hillside. All at the leisurely pace of our ellies, who were mightily keen for second breakfast and elevensies already, we slowly walked with arms stretched behind as we encouraged them along with tiny bananas. If we weren’t quick enough to resupply our hands with new bananas to replace the ones they’d just eaten, we sure knew about it, as trunks came curling up around our hands, chests, faces, cameras- anything in reaching distance! We couldn’t stop laughing. We had to make sure that there was plenty of room between them to keep them squabbling over the last few fruits. Snack time was quickly followed by a scratch break and the nearest tree would do. I'm sure the tree was fine, but if it had a voice, I could imagine it wheezing loudly like someone who has just been sat on unexpectedly by someone slightly larger than themselves. As we plodded on, we came to the river bed. The river was swollen with the heavy rainfall of the last few days and was flowing rather quickly. This didn't put our pachyderm friends off: this was an opportunity for a gentle swim and even a dive or two! We were not about to go swimming though- the current was just too strong. Instead, we clambered into our inflatable rafty carriage and floated hastily across. We crashed into the bank on the opposite side and tried not to fall straight onto our arses as we got out. The walk quickly changed from the easy level terrain near on the way to the river to slippery muddy hills as we ascended towards our lunching destination. Although it had made the journey much more difficult, I was grateful that the rains had mellowed the temperature at least as we couldn’t quench our thirsts quickly, with one hand spearing the ground with a walking stick and the other waving around all over the shop to help keep balance as we climbed higher.
The cabin on the side of the hill where our lunch was awaiting us had amazing views over the valley down to the nature park. We could see the buffalo crossing the water and small herds of elephants in the distance. Lunch consisted of a delicious veggie massaman curry, spring rolls, noodles and “crispy” fried tofu. I wasn’t really sure what to expect there, I’ve been told it’s like eating cardboard. This was more like day old, slightly limp prawn crackers with the flavour of pork crackling. It wasn’t horrendous and I’m sure if they were fresh and actually crispy, they’d have been pretty good.
Once we finished lunch, we headed back down the hillside with fresh bags of bananas and walked the elephants towards the river again. We boarded the raft again to cross but the flow was so strong one of our guides sacrificed his dry clothes and jumped in to slow us down and help swim us back to the gap in the bank to get off. After another basket full of fruit to chomp on and a cooling bucket bath, we had to take them home and say goodbye.
Our day wasn’t quite over yet. We bundled back into the van and drove a little up the hill. I’m sure I’d read something about rafting on the itinerary but, having crossed the river already in a raft, naively thought that we’d already done it.
No.
We hadn’t. The water was ferocious. I actually don’t remember a lot of the trip other than being on the side, paddling, ducking in the raft, bounce up, crash down, get very wet and repeat. We did manage to beach ourselves on some low lying rocks and getting off was a little precarious! It was great fun though and as we finished with the rapids, we were greeted by Patrick who took us into the nature park.
The park was now home to a number of elephants, buffaloes, cats and dogs. The park does not allow its visitors to touch the elephants, only to observe. The elephants formed new families and bonds as newly rehabilitated members were introduced into the reserve. The landscape of the park has evolved over time to help keep the peace between families, and to discourage mating- the park isn’t looking to start a breeding program!
We also got the chance to see the newest rescued elephants. It was sad to see how noticeably different they seemed compared with Happy, Clean and the elephants in the reserve. They seemed much more wary of our presence and still very affected by their traumas. It was at least reassuring to see what their future would look like here.
On the way out, we stopped by a wall showing before and after images of some of their residents. Land mine wounds, starvation, dehydration, pressure sores, trap wounds were a few of the list of ailments and after receiving treatment, they were healthy and loved. It’s progress and there is hope for the future of many more elephants in need of rescuing and above all hope that the value of healthy and free elephants will one day be enough to even reduce the need for sanctuaries.
We loved every minute of being around these beautiful animals. They were gentle, majestic, and hilarious. It was one of the best experiences of our lives.
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