Day 1 and 2- travel day/orientation
I have been looking forward to this day since I booked the trip back in february. today I am off to thailand to volunteer at an elephant conservation project. the flight to Bangkok from Auckland is 12 hours and then another hour flight to Chang Mai. It seems like every flight I take from NZ never leaves on time. So of course with the 40min delay I found myself in a panic to make my connecting flight. This isnt the first time on my travels that I have had to run through the airport nor is it thefirst time I've heard my name being called on the speaker. It certainky doesnt help that I had 3 different airport workers send me in 3 different directions. Needless to say, I made the flight and was the asshole holding up the plane. I arrived in Chang Mai at 11pm and once I got to my hotel, I went to bed. check in at the ENP office was at 8am so I wanted plenty of rest. The next morning I walked to the office in town to register. To be honest, I was a bit nervous because I didnt know what to expect from this project and I didnt know how many people would be volunteering with me. Luckily, the office was filled with 50 other volunteers from all over the world so my nerves subsided. After registration, we were taken to the park, which was an hour north of the city center. While on the ride, we watched a short documentary about elephants in thailand and the goals of the ENP. Most of these elephants have been rescued from illegal logging and extreme abuse while working for touristy type venues. Once we got closer to the park we drove past a tour of trekking elephants with tourists riding on their backs. At first glance I was like "oh cool. I want to ride an elephant " but then I saw the mahout, or handler, cartying a bullhook. They use these hooks to stab the back of the elephants head to direct them or punish them if they do anything wrong. How could any tourist condone that? After we settled in at the park, we were given a tour of the grounds, fed the elephants and bathed them. We were assigned our rooms, which were multi share and lucky for me I was bunking with 2 women from NZ...Robyn and Kim. While at orientation, I also made friends with Carrie from south Africa and tiph from france. the 5 of us did everything together all week.
Day 3
since our work day starts at 8am, I hit the breakfast line the moment its brought out, at 7am. Breakfast is served buffet style with toast, bananas, and fresh fruit with yogurt. I realzed that this is the only healthy meal served for us. Lunch is nothing but noodles, rice, curries, and stir fried everything. I love thai food but can definitely live without it for a while. After breakfast, we meet our volunteer coordinators to find out what our jobs will be. The 50 volunteers are split up into 4 groups A, B, C, and D. I am in group D with robyn and kim. Today, our morning job is to collect flat rocks by the river bank so later in the week we can build stone walls. These stone walls prevent the elephants from roaming into areas they are not allowed to. Lunch time is 11:30-1:30. I personally think 2 hours for lunch is excessive but it is 100 degree heat so I understand them not wanting to overwork us. After lunch, we go to the home of the newborn baby elephant and its mom. We need to shovel fresh sand ontop of the wet mud to prevent mosquitos. This took us until 4pm so we all took showers (cold water only) and prepared for dinner. Tonight we had a blessing ceremony and then a thai cultural lesson from our VCs where we learned about the royal family, monks, and thai language. Cha rhak khun means I love you.
Day 4- corn fields
Working in the corn fields is the Toughest job of them all. The field is an hour truck ride from the park. Since the corn stalks are so rough and we are using a machete to cut them, we are required to wear sneakers, long pants, long sleeve shirt and a hat.....in 100 degree heat. I have never sweat so much NOT working in my life. So of course once we started the work, it was worse. Every face was beet red by the endof the day. The job required us to cut the corn stalks as close to the ground as possible and we had to have 300 bundles. This will feed all the elephants for 1 day. Once we compketed 300 bundles, we then had to carry the bundles to the truck. Not the easiest thing to do either. But we managed to complete it all by 2pm. On the ride back we passed another group of trekking elephants. Just as the truck got close to them the mahout took its bullhook and smashed the elephant on the back of the head...for no reason. The mahouts know what the ENP is teaching us about the abuse these elephants endure in these tourist camps that he hit the elephant just to get a rise out of us. I will never forget the sound it made when the hook bashed the head. It makes me so sad to think about this abuse that I am glad I am supporting the park to end it.
Day 5
Today is poop day. I wasnt looking forward to this day at all but surprisingly elephant poop is rather clean. It doesnt smell and it is solid. We finished the poop scooping early so we grabbed a bundle of bananas and got to walk around the park feeding some of the elephants. Our afternoon job was to collect bananas. Around 4pm we bathed the elephants and watched the baby elephant play in the water. Every night a group of women from the local town come to the park to domassages. So I decided I would get an hour thai nody massage. 200 baht was about $7 NZD. So cheap!
Day 6
Today we helped out in the elephant kitchen. Even though all the produce come from organic farms, they dont want to risk the elephants eating pumpkins and fruit that have pesticides on it. So we have to wash all the pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers before we cut them up. We need about 30 buckets full of food. After the washing, we have to peel 3 buckets of bananas, mash them up, add corn, tamarins and rice flour. Then we roll them into balls. These banana balls are for the elderly elephants that no longer have teeth to chew the harder food. After the kitchen, we fed the elephants again. Right now, thailand is in the rainy season which means sporadic monsoons. We got to experience this in the afternoon so our job or bulding stone walls was postponed. Instead we sat in the kitchen and peeled tamarins. Not fun. Its like peeling a seed out of a case covered with caramel and toffee. Super sticky and messy.
Day 7 and 8
Today and tomorrow we get to choose between working in the elephant kitchen or picking up poop. I actually chose to pick up poop both days. I want to be outside in the warm weather as long as possible because I will be returning to winter in NZ. Plus, I get to see the baby elephant. These are our last working days so the mood was a bit relaxed. We took a big group picture and also played in the mud. We had to make a mud pit for the elephants so naturally in turned into a big mud fight. In the afternoon, we went across the riverbank to pick lychees. A thai fruit that is very delicious. Since we are leaving the park the next day, I treated myself to another massage :)
Day 9
My flight back to NZ was a great one. The plane did not have a lot of people flying and since it was a red eye, I was able to have 3 seats to myself to lay down on and sleep. I slept for 8 hours and felt refreshed once I landed. I learned a lot from this trip and I am going to pass on my knowledge to those in my life. In 1900 there were 100,000 elephants in the wild in thailand. Today, there are 1600 domesticated elephants and only 500 in the wild. I will never go to a circus again nor will I take my children to a circus. I hope that I can continue to support the goals of the ENP from wherever I am in this world by spreading awareness of the abuse these beautiful animals are enduring.
