Elephants elephants elephants

I read somewhere that the devil has a unique hell for each of us - that putting everyone in a generic pit of fire might just appeal to some people - therefore, I can assume we each have a unique heaven, after all "one man's heaven might be another mans hell"... Soory for all the religious theory, but Josie got to her heaven early and while she is alive! And for me especially that was a good thing, as had Josie found this place before she met me, we would never have met !!

The elephant Nature park, about 1hr north of chiang mai and nestled in the hills and next to a local village, took us in for a week of volunteering (we had to pay of course) but it was worth the money. This place is a real conservation effort, the elephants are not worked (that is, made to trek, paint or play football) - they just get waited on hand and foot by us people. Meanwhile 37 rescued dogs, 28 rescued cats and 3 cows are also pampered...like I said, Josie heaven.

We arrrived with the other load of volunteers, of which there were about 18 all up, included those carrying over from last week. We were allocated our bungalow, made out of bamboo, on stilts with a mossie net and outhouse and shower (also bamboo)....beautifully rustic and authentically thai !

And then, we were put to work...Josie made a great statement, First I got paid to shovel shit, now I am paying to shovel shit - and can those big grey beasties curl them out !!

But before I digress, let me give you a quick rundown on the daily routine
at the park:
Rise and shining at 6.30am, to be at brekkie for 7am. Eat by 7.30 to then start morning chores (these are cleaning up the dung, cleaning out the cats, watering plants, doing the bins, collecting figs etc)...all to be finished by 8am.

At 8am we start our morning project - this is a bigger job, usually requiring everyone and could range from digging the mud pit deeper, to chopping banana trees, bringing bamboo down the river, fencing etc but generally involved hard bloody work - I kid you not! You should see my
hands, they were not ready for this kind of hard yakka !! At 10.30, 2 utes arrived loaded to the eyeballs with the elephants food: bananas, pumpkin, corn (damned corn), pineapples and cucumbers. At this time we needed to work hard and fast - we had 30 hungry elephants at the
decks, 20 (usually lound american) daytrippers ready to feed them and a bloody lot of work to fill each basket with the food cleaned, chopped and prepared! The worst was the corn - we had to chuck (spelling?, I mean peel or husk it) - now that doesn't sound hard, but somedays the ute would turn up with only corn....this took the 20 of us about 1 hour !! Damn corn, I
hate corn....

We then got to help feed the elephants (who could feed themselves) but this is a nice way to interact, providing you stay on the right end of the trunk - as some were either cranky or just a bit on the naughty side (particularly one young boy called Jungle Boy)...

After feeding the elephants, we got fed at 12...and let me tell you, did we get fed !! This was real Thai food - and every lunch (and dinner for that manner) we had about 15 thai dishes to pick from. Unfortunately, the park attracts a fair amount of tree hugging hippes, so there was only 1 meat dish - but to be honest, it was all so good it didn't matter !! After lunch was done it was time to bathe the elephants - yes, you read it right. These elephants are spolit rotten...they get taken down to river with us humans in tow with bucket and brush. Their mahoots get them to laying the river and we then scrub their backs - literally !! Usually at some point, Jungle Boy
and Hope will then run amok and we will all scatter before getting flattened...

After bath time, the 3 baby elephants there (like I said Josie heaven) would then play in the mud pit for 30 mins while we all ooohed and ahhhed as they rolled about in the mud....before 2pm rolled around and we would need to start our afternoon project work, finishing about 5.30pm...enough time to go back to our bungalow, grab a cold shower and get changed for dinner at 6.30.

After another fantastic feed (and a big beer on my part) when those feeling brave dared a thai massage...and these were sensational ! Borderline torture - but for 120 baht (2 quid) you got an hour of massage !! mmmm massage

This usually meant it was about 8.30pm - and time for bed - where we would fall into a deep coma until the alarm went off again at 6.30 in the morning and we would repeat the whole process.

Josie, being a vet nurse, hooked up with the local vet - got to do the rounds, treat elephant wounds and even did an off site visit - yep, happy as a pig in shit !!

Some of the other special highlights we were part of:

• Josie had to treat a mahout (elephant handler) who had the tip of one finger bitten off by a baby elephant !! His finger did not look pretty - and I bet that baby now has a taste for human blood !
• We all went and rescued a pregnant elephant from a trekking camp down the road, which got chased by Hope back out of the park, but eventually settled in over 3 days and should give birth in the next couple of months.
• I got charged by a big ol' elephant while working with Craig - we shat our pants and ran like the wind (much to the amusement of the mahout). Damn scary I can tell you (one of the elephants in the park is a man killer!) and believe it not, but you cannot hear and elephant sneaking up on you !
• We saw the set of the next Rambo movie, that's right Rambo IV - it was 5 mins down the road !! Go Stallone ! But filming finished the week before we arrived - bugger !

In all, it was a special time. We would have loved to stay longer - but we were so lucky to get in the 1st place!! The group we were with was an interesting mix...mainly poms, 1 canadian, 2 swedish, 2 french and 1 american (who was typically loud)... 8 of the poms were 18yr olds on the gap year - and a lazier bunch you wont meet (except for 1 scot, Dawn - go figure). The future of the world is shafted if we are in their hands !! We met some lovely people though, Cindy, Maria & Craig and Andy & Vanessa...

And before we knew it, it was time to leave for the islands....very hard to say goodbye.

They do important work and try to get a big message out there. They don't like elephant trekking, the elephants get broken in the most brutal way, and are then overworked, underfed and regularlly hit on the forehead with a sharp metal hook - have a look at www.elephantnaturepark.org If you get a chance in thailand - don't do an elephant ride, come to this place - even for a day trip (where you can feed, wash and walk with the elephants) - you will love it !

Dare I say it, but I think we will be back there for sure...I am sure Josie will make sure of that !!