We booked 2 days at the project to watch the elephants in their natural habitat (no riding!) and get stuck in and help out as volunteers.
Early starts took our group of about 10 out into the projects rented part of the forest. Our first day we spent the morning following a group of 4 elephants, watching them bath in a pool in part of the river, then walking up the mountain through the dense forest - I didn't realise elephants are so nimble. Watching them bathe we realised that these elephants had to relearn their natural behaviour from being captured at a young age for overwork in the logging industry. 2 of them got straight into the pool and were happily lying on their sides with trunks coming out occasionally to breath, whilst the other 2 had to be washed by their mahouts. We followed them for a few hours, keeping our advised 5 metres distance as they ate their way through bamboo bushes. After lunch we were put to work with hoes and machete knives. Emma and I were given knives and asked to cut down weeds growing around the banana trees. After an hour we were sweating and had both already collected several blisters on our hands...and I had made some very big reddish ants unhappy as they started crawling up the knife and my trousers with 1 attaching its pincer things to the end of my finger!!!! - it was a determined little bugger and took a few attempts to get it off!! Anyway, we had done our bit, back for dinner, cold showers in a blackout from power cuts and sleep.
Day 2: We were put straight to work with our morning job to cut down banana trees that had already fruited and trees that had bunches of bananas ready for the elephants to eat.
Fact of the day: It can take up to 2 years for a banana tree to grow 1 bunch of bananas, then that's it, it has to be chopped down for the process to start again!!! Appreciate those bananas!!
Anyway, this was much more fun then the previous day and we forgot about our blisters popping and got on with it!! We both had turns in chopping the juicy trees down and then cutting them into sections to carry and pile up - ready to be taken to some of the elephants that weren't getting enough calories. This was a great satisfying job 😊
After lunch we had our last afternoon following a different group of elephants in another area of their forest. Just 2 of them this time. We sat on some rocks on a river and watched them bath and get scrubbed down by their mahouts below us in a little pool. Then out to eat the banana trees and bamboo. It was much more open here so we watched them without having to scramble through trees and bushes. We were asked if we wanted to stroke them - as these were much more placid then the others we had followed the previous day. We both went up and separately stroked the elephants tough skin on its side whilst it ate its way through bamboo keeping an eye on us!!
So despite lots of blisters, aching muscles and Emma's had a cold, we absolutely loved our 2 days observing the elephants and helping out a great project. 😊
