We spent a wonderful 3 days in Lampang, Northern Thailand, at the Thailand Elephant Conservation Centre where now redundant elephants get to live out their lives because the logging trade has been made illegal. There is not enough forest left for all of the elephants in Thailand to live freely. Their only future lies in tourism, fortunately or unfortunately, whatever way you look at it. They are well cared for at the TECC and get to earn their keep.
Let me introduce you to 'Som Choi': 10 years old, large and grey, quite hairy, weighing in somewhere around the 2 tonnes mark. Som Choi was my elephant for the duration of our mahout training course and lovingly called 'naughty Som Choi'. I quickly found out he does his best to live up to his name! He's a typical young boy: restless, inquisitive and always looking for the next mouthful of something tasty. He's also gentle, obedient (most of the time) and very patient with stupid tourists like me making a hash of his commands and trampling all over him in an effort to get up and down.
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| From Thailand |
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| From Thailand |
So Mahout training school involved each tourist being assigned to an elephant of varying ages, sizes and temperaments, along with the elephant's regular mahout (also of varying ages and temperaments, but all basically the same size - small!). The first thing to learn are the basic commands to get up onto the elephant and back down again; make the elephant sit down, lie down, pick things up etc. After a short while of practising these commands and getting up and down several times I established that although Som Choi may be small in terms of elephants, I still couldn't manage to hoist mayself up onto his neck. This inevitably resulted in me half way up with one leg sort of over his back, completely unable to get any further. A strong push on the backside from my mahout was always required! We then proceeded down to the lake for the first of what would be many elephant baths over the next few days.
This bath marked the start of the elephant show for the tourists visiting the centre for the day. They got to watch as we waded into the water and sloshed water over the elephants to clean them. My mahout didn't speak much english but thought it was hilarious to get me as wet as possible during these baths, usually by instructing Som Choi to lie down in the water so that he was completely submerged and I was dunked to my waist.
Now this wasn't a nice clean lake that was inviting for swimming. It was opaque brown and full of floating elephant dung; it was probably 50% made up of elephant pee and it was also full of the debris washed from the elephants 2-3 times a day. The bathing was great fun though and we just tried not to think about the state of the water! Most of this bath time was spent by the elephants filling their trunks with water and then squirting it high into the air and over us - so the bits that didn't get wet from being dunked got wet from showers! My Mahout would then spend the walk back to the show ground giggling about my dripping condition and saying things like "You wet ha ha ha":-).
Now started the tourist show "proper". Each elephant was introduced by name, and they would bow to the audience, we would then walk around the show ground each holding the tail in front whilst the audience were given various elephant facts. The new mahouts (us) then had to demonstrate to the audience the commands we had learnt - get up on the elephant, get back down, get the elephant to sit down, lie down on their belly, lie down on their side, pick up the stick etc, etc. Som Choi knew all the moves off by heart and upside down but he wouldn't do them until the command had been repeated several times. All that was except for the 'lie on your belly' command, and it always took me by surprise. Having clambered back onto his neck, rather ungracefully in front of the watching audience (clutching my sodden trousers, which are so heavy when wet, and hoping they wouldn't end up around my ankles at that precise moment), I got Som Choi to sit down and pick up the stick I had dropped on the ground; then Som Choi would lie down straight away without a command being given. This sudden movement left me, for the tiniest fraction of a second, still sitting at the height we were at but now minus an elephant underneath me. Gravity would then take over and I'd drop back down to his neck now a meter of so lower than the previous second, leaving my stomach behind. This was of great amusement to my mahout as I let out a little yelp of surprise each time Som Choi disappeared, momentarily, underneath me!
This was the end of mine and most of the other new mahouts role's in the show and the real mahouts would take over. There would be a demo of pushing and pulling logs as the elephants would have done in the logging trade. The largest elephant, Jo Jo, would then walk a log like a balance beam, stand with just 2 legs on the log, turn 360 degrees, then come back off. Their awareness of their feet, weight distribution and body position is amazing for animals so big. This show sounds a bit circus-esque but I assure you it was all done in the best possible taste and the elephants are treated very well.
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| From Thailand |
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| From Thailand |
Mike then got his star turn in the show riding his elephant, 'Patchya', whilst she pulled logs using chains. Mike's elephant was bigger than mine and an old timer at 29. She was very stubborn but very well behaved. Mike got to bathe Patchya by himself as his mahout didn't like getting wet and he was told several times that "Michael good mahout"!! I'll let Mike tell you more about his elephant experiences later.
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| From Thailand |
The end of the show saw the elephants showing off their artistic talents. 3 elephants would have an easel set up in front of them and with the help of their mahouts, who put the paint on the brushes for them, they would paint pictures. Some were very abstract swipes of the brush and some with more practise drew flowers and even elephants. I have to confess that this was more down to the mahout's skill at guiding the trunk than real elephant artistic talent but they were still very good! After the painting 5 of the elephants, including Som Choi, would play the Thai national anthem on a musical instrument that was like a set of wind chimes. The elephants were so enthusiastic at playing the chimes that they stood practising in anticipation - so cute! The show ended with a bow and then the audience could feed them sugar cane and bananas. At 2pm each day we would take the elephants to the forest, where they would stay for the night and gorge themselves to their hearts content.
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| From Thailand |
We did 2 shows a day, and 3 baths a day, and all in all it was really exhausting (and really wet), but a truly, truly wonderful experience. We all had aching limbs from sitting on the elephants neck's, which was surprisingly comfortable but you had to hold your knees up and put them behind the ears (a bit like a jockey position but there's no stirrups so you have to hold them there using muscle power alone). By the 3rd day it was preferable to be on the elephant rather than off because walking became very painful!
There is a nursery at the centre with 2 babies there currently - Seven (born 07/07/07 hence the name) and Piannoud (no idea how to spell it) who is 4 months and cute beyond belief!
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| From Thailand |
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| From Thailand |
I can't wait to go back again!
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