About 2 years ago I reconnected with a good highschool friend of mine, Lauren. She had just come back from an incredible experience of helping out with the elephants in Thailand. There have been many important times in my life where people talk about their travels or experiences with such strong convictions & then recommend that I do the same. Needless to say this was one of them. And I am so grateful to have had this experience also. So basically Helen and I paid to volunteer for a week & do a lot of manual labor. But in our free time we got to roam, feed, bath, & play with the elephants.
The lady who created this elephant reserve grew up in Thailand as the granddaughter of a Shaman. She always had this strong connection with elephants and wanted to do something to protect them from all the abuse. Elephants were used heavily during the logging days of Thailand. Now due to deforestation logging is illegal & there is no need for the elephants. So their owners have resorted to street begging & tourist rides to make money.
Even though elephants are considered sacred animals with Thai's Buddhist beliefs they are not treated as such. The main problem is the way the elephants are "broken into" their lives of tourism. They are tortured for days in tiny chambers. (We got to see plenty of footage.) Lek, the owner of this reserve has opened up this space for the Mahouts, or elephant owners to come & live with their families & bring their elephants so long as they do not abuse the elephants anymore.
They are also in the process of opening another reserve, working with the Thai government, providing free medical aide to local villages, and educating the new mahout generations on trying to change hundreds of years of abuse. It is beyond inspiring: http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/
I think my single most favorite thing about elephants is their soulful eyes. This ele is crazy for some bananas. But after spending just a week with them you really pick up on their language & expressions. They really are some of the most gentle, special, loving creatures.
I also loved the way they were constantly scratching. Elephants have surprisingly sensitive skin.
The reserve has 33 elephants, 3 pigs, tons of dogs, water buffalo, and plenty of mice & rats too.
Here is Michele in all her food preparation glory. She is an Aussie who came to help out for a couple weeks 6 years ago & has not left! It was fun helping her out, plus she always had great tunes playing.
I like this photo because you can really see the indentions right behind May Kum Geaws eyes. It is easy to tell a general age of elephants by looking at their forehead. The deeper the indentions the older the elephant. 
About half way into our week we got to take an overnight excursion with the ele's to Elephant Heaven. We hiked about 2 hours with the elephants up into jungle paradise. We lucked out because they had just built a bridge back that had collapsed and we just missed the rain that cancelled the next groups trip.
The elephants were pretty wiped out after our hike. When we arrived to our camp they spent at least 45 minutes enjoying their mud bath. 
These garments were blessed by monks. Every group that goes to Elephant Heaven wraps them around trees to protect them from the loggers that are trying to destroy the surrounding areas.
Here is a perfect example of what should not be happening. Many of these elephants had blood marks from beatings. If you ever go to Thailand please do not ride the elephants or give money to street elephants.
Another day we got to go to the local school & play with all the kiddos. Obviously I was in paradise. There always is a group of children outside of school that cook treats to raise money. They were totally delish. Oh yeah- for all those Eanes & Mystic people we taught the kindergarteners how to "GO BANANAS!"
Dr. Rob & nurse Jeannette pretty much adopted all the "youngsters" in the group. They were a lovely Australian couple who were going to go to Europe but after hearing about the reserve decided to cancel & come work with the ELE'S in Thailand.
Heres, Number 1, our guard dog.
Nat our "volunteer coordinator"
Dam is the mahout for May Kum Geaw (my favorite elephant!) Everyone made fun of him because he used to be the mahout for Hope (a naughtier elephant) & since he has switched he had put on some pounds since he does not have to run around chasing Hope anymore. 
Meadow (on the right) broke her back in a poorly run breeding camp. When we humans break our back we are totally incapacitated. Seeing Meadow and her friend & they way they care for & protect each other makes me melt.
2 comments:
Hi! I am a friend of Ivie (or Ai Wei)who'd just passed by.. hihi and nice to meet you..^^ Did you knew her while travelling in Malaysia? Your articles on your travels are really interesting.
By the way, talking about Tiananmen Square..
The Forbidden City's existence seems to be simultaneous with autocracy and lack of speech freedom.. it is built in the Ming dynasty and there's where the people began to lose the permission to speak out loud. It is the imperial palace for the Qing dynasty and that was where government control on speech was at its highest.. and, media restrictions have been passed on to the communist party.
Isn't the forbidden city a nice symbol of autocracy and submissiveness of the people? Thousands of years of absolute rule has its effects. Perhaps things need time to change. But the students of Tiananmen Square shows us hope and the future of China.
Perhaps a collective culture like China has little voices to expect from. But, should there be voice, it will be the voice of all the people.
Such a text can set me in trouble in China perhaps. But Malaysia with its pretended democracy sees less media freedom than communist China can claim.
Wow, this is pretty incredible! And you took some AMAZING pictures!
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