Traveling with Elephants

Not all of the elephants at the Park are owned by Lek. Some of them are leased, which means that Lek pays the elephants owners in order to look after them at the park. She only does this when they're pregnant or ill and really in need of it. Otherwise she'd have too many people taking advantage of her. It's a pretty sweet deal for the owners - their elephants are happy, well looked after, AND they're getting paid for it.

Mae Toh Koh is one of her leased elephants. She came to the park with her son, a week after giving birth. They've been at the park ever since (they arrive 2 1/2 years ago, when I was last there). Her owner came yesterday to let Lek know that he would be taking both mother and son back to his village for a 15 day burma karen ceremony (many elephant owners in Thailand are actually from the Karen hilltribe in Burma).

At 9 o'clock this morning, Mae Toh Koh and her 2 1/2 year old son, Pupia, were loaded into a truck (no easy feat - it took quite a bit of persuasion, and some force, to get them there). Myself, two other volunteers, and a few of the park staff, then accompanied the elephants on the trip.

We rode in a pickup truck behind them, while their mahout and owner rode in the truck with them. What is normally a 3 hour drive took nearly 5 hours. Mae Toh Koh was relatively calm, but Pupia was agitated, and kept trying to stand on his two hind legs to see over the side. Because he's so much lighter than his mother (mom weighs about 3000 kilos), the truck tilted heavily to one side - so much so, that on a few of the turns, we were all worried it was going to go over.

We finally arrived at the village around 2:30. Getting the pair off the truck was much easier. They were led to the owner's house, where they were chained and fed in his backyard. We didn't stay long, but were assured they would be taken to the jungle to spend the night. No one's quite sure whether Lek will actually get the elephants back in 15 days. Young elephants are usually trained around the age of 3, so there's some speculation that the owner will just keep Pupia, and send his mother back to a life of treking camps.