Day 1 with the Elephants

The Elephant Nature Park's van picked me up at 9:00 this morning. There are 8 volunteers who are all staying for one week, and 6 day visitors. After hitting the market to pick up the elephants' food (208 big bags of bananas), we set off!

Before arriving at the Park, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the experience exceeded all expectations. It's about 1 1/2 hours from Chiang Mai & as you approach the park, the landscape looks like something out of Jurassic Park. Set on a river in a lush green valley are 350 acres of land, dedicated solely to these elephants. When we finally pulled into the Park, we were greeted by 24 pachyderms. Well, I guess they weren't really greeting us as much as they were the bananas :o)

We were all introduced to Michelle - an Australian who's been working at the park for the past 2 1/2 years. She plays host to all the day visitors & keeps an eye on all the volunteers. Her husband, Carl, is currently back in Australia, but usually works as a mahout (elephant handler) for one of the park's elephants.

Michelle told us a bit about the elephants, the goals of the park & what to expect during out stay, then we set about feeding the elephants. There's really not much to feeding them - it mostly involves ripping open all the bags of bananas & about 1 minute after that's done, all the fruit is gone. They get two meals a day - bananas/cucumbers/watermelon at lunch, and huge bales of fresh grass in the evening (plus they're constantly grazing in the fields throughout the day).

After that, the humans got to eat - the food here is incredible! There were 8 different dishes - none of which contained nuts or coconut. We took a little longer than the elephants, but enjoyed it just as much. Once the plates were cleared away, it was time to round up all the elephants & head down to the river for a bath. Armed with buckets & brushes, we were all thoroughly soaked by the end - I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, though. Some of the elephants just sit there while they're being scrubbed, but others seem to have a blast splashing & floating around.

After the bath, we all went to watch a video produced by National Geographic (in conjunction with Lek - the Park's owner) about the plight of the Asian Elephant. You can watch parts of it at http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature5/video.html It's a painful video, but as Michelle pointed out, its important to watch it, to get an idea of what these animals really go through.

After the video & a bit of free time, the day people left & the volunteers had dinner (even better than lunch!), then we all hit the sack around 9pm.