In November 2006 my husband and I spent three memorable days at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre near Lampang. https://thailandelephant.org/
It was a wonderful opportunity to practice being a mahout and to be so close to these wonderful animals. Each one of us in the group was assigned ‘our’ elephant together with their mahout. My lovely little elephant was called Wanalee and her mahout’s name was Tiam. My husband’s elephant was called Prathida and his mahout was John. At first I was very nervous about getting onto an elephant and even more about swimming with it but I absolutly loved the whole experience. The group we were with were great; some found it easier than others to get astride an elephant but we all managed it. Feeling confident in the water took me quite a while particularly when you have an elephant submerged underneath you and it’s just your head which is above the water. During the water ‘fights’ little Wanalee was too young to make a good water spout from her trunk so the bigger elephants wasted no time in showering us with water helped by their enthusiastic temporary mahouts. My husband was making the most of Prathida’s prowess at squirting water and made sure he aimed her trunk at me whenever he could.
Taking the elephants back to their quarters at the end of the day was one of the highights of the stay. Crossing the river and then up along the narrow paths through the trees was an amazing experience. As we said goodnight to the elephants and turned back to the camp we were all looking forward to the next day to be with our elephant again.
Putting on a damp, thickish denim suit at the crack of dawn proved to be a fairly unpleasant experience – very clingy. Before long though the sun started to warm us up so as we stood together we literally steamed. Why we made a fuss about putting on this heavy garb I’m not sure as it wasn’t long before we were in the water again with our elephant, heading back to the Centre. I love the pictures of us coming through the trees wih the early morning sun on our faces. It felt magical to be there sat on this wonderful animal navigating the narrow path with the mahout sat behind making sure we were safe and we weren’t going to fall off. No-one spoke; no-one needed to, we were all enjoying the experience.
Elephants are always hungry and eat a lot, so much of the day revolved around preparing food and feeding them. Bathing plays an important part too along wth rolling in the mud and the inevitable water sports. The crazier it became the more the mahouts laughed. They were a happy lot and who wouldn’t be, living there and having an elephant to look after? They were a cheeky lot too and thought it was great fun to encourage the elephants to have a race with us hanging on as tightly as we could. Elephants have no handle bars and don’t like their ears beig pulled so it is tricky to hang on when they’re lumbering along at quite a pace. Fortunately I wasn’t the one who had a very large stick insect planted onto her baseball cap duing the race – I would have freaked out!
After taking the elephants back to the forest for the night some of us were invited to share an evening meal with Tiam and his family. I, along with one of the Australian guys, said we liked hot curry so Tiam’s wife gave us a chance to do a little cooking. She too had a sense of humour as she knew just what to put into a curry to make it virtually inedible. We threw in all the ingreditents she’d prepared for us but once we tried it we knew it was just way too hot to eat, so we gave some to the dogs. One mouthfull and they were gone; we didn’t see them for the rest of the night! Fortunately Tiam’s wife had made us a curry which was not ridiculously hot, absolutely delicous and full of flavour without burning our tongues. Other mahouts joined us later which was nice which made us feel they had enjoyed our time with us and our company too.
The group was a little subdued the next morning walking to the forest as we knew we were leaving that day. It was going to be hard saying goodbye to all the people we’d met and the lovely mahouts and of course ‘our’ elephant. I guess none of us expected to visit again but of course we hoped that we might.
Now it’s February 2024. John and I had spent four days in Chang Mai which you can read about in the previous Blog and now we were on our way to the Elephant Conservation Centre. It had been a long time but we knew both our elephants were still there and we just couldn’t wait to see them!
The following pictures say more than I can in words. We were thrilled to meet Tiam again and Wanalee and Prathida and John and to soak up the atmosphere of this wonderful place.
Writing about these two elephants and the unforgettable three days we spent with them has brought back lots of memories. It was a wonderful experience, and yes we were lucky to be able to go back there. Who knows, one day we may just call in to see them again?
Travels with the Booths.blog 