Chaing Dao, Thailand –
“Just give me the bananas and no one will get hurt…”
The trunk stretches through the fence towards me, grabbing the bunch of bananas from my hand. Any thought of not giving them to this particular elephant is gone. All along the fence, elephants are being fed bunches of bananas and bundles of sugar cane. There are signs posted asking that you give the whole bunch at once to the elephants, not to parcel them out one at a time, otherwise the elephants are likely to get frustrated and angry. You don’t want to get an elephant angry…
These are all smaller elephants, so the damage might be limited to an (elephant-sized) adolescent temper tantrum. But they’re all still larger than me, so as slight as any damage might be, compared to if one of their adult relatives were angry, it’s something that I don’t want to be the target of.
And I’m sure the Mahouts feel the same way.
Soon, feeding time is over, and its time for baths. Or, seeing as these are all kids, play time in the river!
It’s obvious that they enjoy their baths. Some are wallowing in the water, rolling onto their sides and dipping their heads under the surface. Others are trying to start water fights with their Mahouts, throwing as much water back at their Mahout as the Mahouts are throwing on them. It all reminds me of children playing in a pool, splashing each other and themselves. I wish my dog felt the same way about her baths.
Soon enough, bath time is over. The elephants are lined up, single file, and head back to camp.
Next on the agenda is the elephant show. A collection of elephants, all different sizes and ages first put on a demonstration of how they were the original heavy-duty construction equipment in this part of the world, dragging large logs and other heavy objects around the grounds. First a smaller one dragged a single log across the performance ground. Next was a slightly larger one dragging two logs. Both the size of the elephant doing the dragging, and the size of the load being dragged kept increasing, until all but the smallest of the performers had dragged something somewhere.
Next came the dance-off, as they performed some synchronized choreography, a little dance with their Mahouts, leading up to a couple of them removing and then replacing their Mahout’s hats.
The pièce de résistance was when they sat up a canvas on an easel, and one of the elephants painted an image as we watched. First one long stroke across the canvas, then another, as the subject being painted slowly revealed itself, an elephant holding a flower with its trunk.
Once the show was over, we made our way over to a tower where, two at a time, we climbed onto the back of some of the largest elephants in the camp for a ride through the jungle. Our seat was a small wooden bench with arms and a back, and one lone seatbelt across the two of us. Once we were settled and our elephant started walking, the need for the seatbelt became obvious, as each step felt like we would be bounced off.
Down through the jungle we went, on some path the elephants and their Mahouts knew well. We wound our way down one hill, around and up another, and soon were at the river’s edge, and heading in. Luckily, the river was not very deep, so we didn’t have to worry about getting wet, and the current was calm. We headed upstream until we were just about back at the camp, where we climbed back onto shore.
Once we had disembarked, we headed back down the path, past the souvenir shops, where we could buy various mementos of our visit to elephant land. The final offering was a photo taken of our ride, already mounted in a custom frame made out of elephant dung. Dried and luckily, no longer smelly, dung…
For more photos of the Elephant Camp, click here.
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