Hello, Your Elephant Is Waiting...
Ok, it seems I got the entire description of my Global Village Habitat for Humanity trip wrong! I truly thought that we were going to build houses at the Elephant Conservation Center and I'm sure that's the tale I told all of you. By now, you've figured that elephants did not join us in our numerous bucket brigades, although I'm confident that their strength would have been appreciated. Overall, the GV Habitat project is a really well run organization in which they try to give the volunteers plenty of cultural exposure, part of which is the R & R portion of the package at the end of the build. This is when the Elephant Conservation Center entered the picture.
The ECC is located in the Lampang province about 32 km outside of the city, and is home to the elephant hospital along with several elephants "in training" for the forestry department. Elephants have long been used by the forestry department harvesting teak, since been embargoed. As these elephants were "put out of service", the government wanted to give them a safe haven to live without the fear of poachers. Thus, the "Home Stay Program" was invented. The cool thing about the elephants in service to Thailand is that each is given a "mahout" or trainer/caretaker that remains with the elephant throughout their entire life, which can span to 90 years of age. The mahout lives on the conservation center's grounds or, should the elephants go back into forestry, travel with them to the jobsite. Their families live on the outskirts of the center. The job is seven days a week. My mahout was a frisky young man named "Li" and my elephant, Pankora. I was told right off the bat that she was A. in love with her fellow elephant, JoJo and B. she was spoiled. We were a perfect match.
Most of you probably think R & R means "rest and relaxation". Ha Ha. In our neck of the woods it meant Rise and Ride. We had to be ready to walk three miles into the jungle at 6:30 AM!
#*($&#$. Indeed. After camping out in a bamboo hut (so many new ideas for the backyard treehouse), enduring a night of enormous worms, screetching geckos, and roosters that just didn't give a damn and crowed whenever they wanted, we hiked through the jungle, literally, through the river and split off with our Mahout until we located our elephant. We returned to the grounds bare back, which was awesome, albeit a little rough on the behind.
During the day, I fed Pankora, "trained" her, which was just for show, participated in the demonstration for tourists, gave her a bath and rode her back into the jungle about 4:PM. The hardest thing was getting on the elephant. Everyone preferred the leapfrog option in which you order the elephant to "map long!" and then hoist yourself by jumping over their heads, landing backwards on the neck and then turning yourself around to face front. Believe me, it's easier than trying to get up from the side. I never thought I'd be this close to an elephant in my life and the opportunity was wonderful. Pankora, definitely in love, was gentle and really quite sweet unless there was sugar cane around. They are quite a site and we were privileged to spend such nearness with them.
The Center also is host to the Elephant Hospital and to several male elephants whose owners couldn't afford to keep them any longer. The tusked ones are kept in a special area at night to fend off poachers. There were several young elephants at the preserve and two had recently been born within the past three months. There is a great website detailing the homestays, the conservation program and the progress of the elephants. If you'd like to see yours truly on top Pankora, check out their website at www.changthai.com and click on the top Habitat Group link. Since we're all in our denim mahout suits, you'll best pick me out by the green hat!
Enjoy and more to come on last thoughts of Bangkok and arrival in Bali.
The ECC is located in the Lampang province about 32 km outside of the city, and is home to the elephant hospital along with several elephants "in training" for the forestry department. Elephants have long been used by the forestry department harvesting teak, since been embargoed. As these elephants were "put out of service", the government wanted to give them a safe haven to live without the fear of poachers. Thus, the "Home Stay Program" was invented. The cool thing about the elephants in service to Thailand is that each is given a "mahout" or trainer/caretaker that remains with the elephant throughout their entire life, which can span to 90 years of age. The mahout lives on the conservation center's grounds or, should the elephants go back into forestry, travel with them to the jobsite. Their families live on the outskirts of the center. The job is seven days a week. My mahout was a frisky young man named "Li" and my elephant, Pankora. I was told right off the bat that she was A. in love with her fellow elephant, JoJo and B. she was spoiled. We were a perfect match.
Most of you probably think R & R means "rest and relaxation". Ha Ha. In our neck of the woods it meant Rise and Ride. We had to be ready to walk three miles into the jungle at 6:30 AM!
#*($&#$. Indeed. After camping out in a bamboo hut (so many new ideas for the backyard treehouse), enduring a night of enormous worms, screetching geckos, and roosters that just didn't give a damn and crowed whenever they wanted, we hiked through the jungle, literally, through the river and split off with our Mahout until we located our elephant. We returned to the grounds bare back, which was awesome, albeit a little rough on the behind.
During the day, I fed Pankora, "trained" her, which was just for show, participated in the demonstration for tourists, gave her a bath and rode her back into the jungle about 4:PM. The hardest thing was getting on the elephant. Everyone preferred the leapfrog option in which you order the elephant to "map long!" and then hoist yourself by jumping over their heads, landing backwards on the neck and then turning yourself around to face front. Believe me, it's easier than trying to get up from the side. I never thought I'd be this close to an elephant in my life and the opportunity was wonderful. Pankora, definitely in love, was gentle and really quite sweet unless there was sugar cane around. They are quite a site and we were privileged to spend such nearness with them.
The Center also is host to the Elephant Hospital and to several male elephants whose owners couldn't afford to keep them any longer. The tusked ones are kept in a special area at night to fend off poachers. There were several young elephants at the preserve and two had recently been born within the past three months. There is a great website detailing the homestays, the conservation program and the progress of the elephants. If you'd like to see yours truly on top Pankora, check out their website at www.changthai.com and click on the top Habitat Group link. Since we're all in our denim mahout suits, you'll best pick me out by the green hat!
Enjoy and more to come on last thoughts of Bangkok and arrival in Bali.
posted by katsninelives at 8:00 PM
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