In March 2014 my partner Jenny and I were lucky enough to volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park, which lies about an hour’s drive from the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
The park was created in the 1990’s by Sandueng ‘Lek’ Chailert, with the aim of rescuing Asian Elephants from abuse in the tourist trade and illegal logging. In Thailand there were over 100,000 Asian elephants in the country at the turn of the last century, today there are around 5,000. It is believed that there are less than 2000 left in the wild.
Let’s get the most important detail over with first – it’s fantastic! If you have a bucket list that involves elephants then it is simple – go to ENP. You get to wash them, feed them, watch them interact with each other, walk with them and take a zillion photographs. Pretty much whatever the elephants are happy for you to do – after all it’s about what the elephants want.
If you want to ride elephants, watch them paint pictures, balance balls for your amusement, or watch them perform logging tasks then this is not the place for you. If you want to support these activities then you really do need to educate yourself further. Every elephant ride in Thailand claims to be a ‘rescue’ or ‘conservation’ park, so do your research!
Anyhow – back to ENP!
It was with some trepidation that Jenny and I decided to spend two weeks volunteering with this great cause. After a few months of PT sessions to get fit for the work required we hoped to be able to work the fields in 40 degree heat! The preparation was well spent!
Our first week started on a Monday at the ENP head office in Chiang Mai, where all the volunteers gathered for transport to our new home for the two next weeks. It was a well organised bit of mayhem to get the 40 or so volunteers into the minivans and off en-route to the park.
The bus climbed through some beautiful mountainside, with plenty of rainforest, wild banana trees, and various crop fields to be seen. After an hour we had our first view of ENP, a breathtaking savannah with elephants roaming about their business either in the grasslands or down by the lovely river that flows through the park. We were home!
After unloading we were allocated our rooms. We were lucky enough to be in a new block of rooms that had our own toilet and shower in our room – we even had hot water to the shower! A luxury that was not available to all! There are definite benefits to volunteering for longer than one week!
In the afternoon we set of for an orientation of the park – a tour that lasted all of 3 minutes before a cry for help came from what we later knew as the elephant kitchen (as opposed to the human food area). The current volunteers had a truck of water melons arrive for unload and not enough people. So for the next hour, we dug in to manually unload and stack water melons! Another truck then arrived full of pumpkins for the same treatment! So after some hard labour that was the end of our tour, but at least the elephants had a food supply for a few days!
In the afternoon we watched a video about the park and Lek’s fight to save the Asian elephant. The video was harrowing to watch. I had always thought that elephants were like big dogs, once house trained they were fine. How wrong I was – I learnt that every ‘domesticated’ elephant goes through the same process (also in Burma, Cambodia and India). At around 4 years of age they are taken from their mothers and brought through the process called “breaking the spirit”. This basically involves beating the baby elephant with sticks on the feet and ears, and piercing with hooks until it accepts being chained and follows instructions from their human ‘Mahoot’. This is why you will see the mahout holding a hook when you ride elephants – the elephant has no choice – but we do!
Following the video we happened upon Lek who was sitting under one elephant in a small herd gathered around her. Elephants protect their young by standing over them – in this case they were protecting Lek as she sang to them (unaware of our presence overhead). Lek invited us down to the elephants to meet them, and thus we had our first encounter with the herd. It is an amazing experience to stand beside the majestic creatures, who are free to roam as they please. Of course this comes with some rules and vigilance so that they do not accidentally trample you. We later came to know just how fast the very cute baby elephants can run, and they do love to play. I draw a parallel with a very enthusiastic small car driving towards you!
Day 2 was the beginning of our work routine – breakfast at 0700 watching the sun rise over the surrounding mountains, and the elephants strolling past on their way to the river. 0800 was the team meeting to allocate that jobs for the day. We got thrown straight in the deep end with one of the hardest jobs – cutting down banana trees to feed the elephants. This involved travel in the back of a truck for 45mins the using a machete to chop down the trees for collection and transport back to ENP. Turns out I am a dab hand with a machete – who would have thought! 🙂
Other tasks for the weeks involved cutting corn stalks (machete work again), mucking out the elephant enclosures each morning, prepping elephant food – which included unloading numerous local trucks filled with Bananas and various types of melon.
The tasks are not hard and many hands make light work – so volunteers are always working together in teams to get the job done. This gives us plenty of time to mix and learn the various backgrounds of everyone, and the bonding really does create some friends for life!
When you have time off then there is always the option to go over to the dog rescue area of ENP. It is lesser known, but there are over 400 dogs there, many rescued from the Bangkok floods by ENP. You can also volunteer with dog rescue. It is yet another great experience to sit with the dogs in one of the many runs. So sad to know that this is probably their only home from now on, and they really do crave human attention when you visit – but it is also great that they have been rescued from the streets and are looked after very well. Be ready to get very dirty on the visit because you are going to get lots of hugs and kisses. I should also mention that you can sponsor or adopt (depending on your country of origin) these wonderful dogs.
There is also plenty of down time when the volunteer co-ordinators (and a special mention to these hard working guys and girls who keep us working, happy, safe and entertained all at the same time!) take us tubing down the local river, off to a local waterfall to cool off, and we were also brought on a trip to the local school where students learn local crafts and learn about the tourist trade.
The evening meals are always welcome and the food is great. I did worry about the food as I am neither vegetarian nor vegan, but I have to say that I had a fully belly from the wonderful selection of food every day. Never knew that meals without meat could be so good! There was an honesty bar too that supplied some nice cold beers to help wash away the dust of the day! Welcome to Singha and of course Chang beers! Who could not drink Chang (elephant) beer at an Elephant rescue centre!!
After dinner there was always something on if you didn’t choose to just rest. The local villagers gave Thai massages – and boy were they so welcome after a day’s work! Some of the ENP teams also gave talks on Thai culture, positive reinforcement techniques, and of course all things elephant. We were also lucky enough to hear from Lek and her journey and experiences. There were not many dry eyes in the house when you hear of the plight of the elephants, and yet so much admiration for the work that Lek does and the resilience it must take.
It is impossible to summarise ENP – it is just one of those places that you have to visit to understand. I encourage you to visit for a day, or volunteer with the elephants or dogs for a week or longer.
If you are interested in volunteering or visiting ENP you should see their website at Elephant Nature Park .
Videos:
And some more photos below, so hard to choose only a few!!
Culligan Travels 