Ellies and Elevated Tribes

I think that most people can say that the sight of an elephant is a wondrous site- and boy do I agree! My main purpose for picking Thailand as a destination for this holiday was to spend some time with elephants in the land of elephants. Their beer, cities and even a few islands are named after this wondrous creature. Unfortunately due to everyone's fascination, many elephants have been moved from their already abused lives in logging camps to elephant trekking "villages" or camps. In these areas people pay a minimal fee to get the chance ride elephants-which I admit seems like a neat idea, but is quite obviously no form of fun for the elephants. As I was riding my bike around Pai I rode by a few elephant camps and even passed an elephant touring some people around the road. My initial thought was "Neat! Not a traffic jam, but an elephant jam!" Until I got closer and could see the look on the poor creature's eye. This elephant carrying the weight of a massive stool and two people on it looked as if the life had been sucked out of it.

This broke my heart, but made me optimistic for my future endeavor at Burm and Emily's Elephant Sanctuary in the mountains tucked behind the village of Mae Chaem. Emily and Burm personally picked me and two other girls up (they ended up going home quickly after not enjoying the other adopted critters and rustic nature of the place) to make the drive out there. On our way out there we drove around Doi Inthanon (the tallest mountain in Thailand) and through the accompanying national park for a pit stop at the biggest and most beautiful waterfall I have seen yet! 

Once we arrived at the Elephant sanctuary we got a quick info session on safety and intro into mahout's customs before we headed to welcome the elephants back from wandering in the forest. The four retired Elepahants and the Mama and Baby elephants in rehabilitation spend their days wandering through the greens of the forest, doing what Elephants do best- eating. They normally travel in pairs with their best friend and they are followed by elephant trainers called mahouts. The mahouts, both Thai and Burmese, are there to make sure the ellies don't go into farms or knock down too large of trees, they act as guides and shadows.

Let me just say that seeing the Elephant's up close and feeding them was amazing! I was in awe of their size and grace. Everything about them was quite mind blowing. I mean I know I am a wee person, but WOW they are biggins in every way! I was also overjoyed to see these elephants had a twinkle in their eye that wasn't there with the elephants I passed on the road. One can easily see that elephants are emotional animals. Especially these ones that had seen and experienced some pretty harsh things before the were relocated to BEES, and now were given a chance at living more freely. I could tell that the forest life was suiting them well.

In my four night stay with BEES we spent two days alone just wandering with the elephants. When we would spot them we would just sit and watch. I would take pictures and ask all the questions that came to mind, while Emily, Burm and the intern(s) told other elephant stories. In my time I observed that elephants really like to eat all sorts of trees, and baby Elephants like to chase humans around tree roots to see if they want to play (true story and sooo much laughter.)

The wandering alone was great because I felt like I was on a field group at Nature's Classroom just watching elephants, spotting any sort of living thing, and checking out the neat tricks of the local fauna. I really couldn't have asked for a a better experience with the Elephants and mountainous region of Northern Thailand.

Something that I really like about BEES is their support for animals which is met  equally with their support for the local cummunity. The mahouts are not only given a full time job, but also a house and supplemental food on top of their salaray.

They also really focus on giving to the local youth with a mid-week children's day normally focused on teaching English. Despite my love for teaching I was happy that I got to experience a very unique children's day. We hopped into the back of a pickup truck lined with pillows, blankets, and food to head to a hill tribe village to help distribute some donations. The drive out there was absolute increadable! We were literally weaving through the mountains I had been admiring from Pai Canyon. They were so endless and grew more dense and greener as we climbed further and further. The people who saw us western folk in the truck craned their necks watching us and just kept staring. We are pretty sure that they had seen less than a handful of cacasion people in their villiages- so we were seeing the authentic them. Once arriving we had to wait for the kids to get out of school so we followed some locals and Monks to go fishing and explore their very deep cave. Emily, who has lived in Thailand for three years, even said "This is a story to tell! Blindly following monks into the forest!" 

It was totally my type of adventure. We left some people below with their intriguing fishing techniques while the rest of us hiked up the hill to a very dark and very deep cave. I could have been in Lord of the Rings with how endless the cave felt. We admired some carvings in the wall, stalagmites, stalagetites, and some bat dwellings. When I was trying to take a picture I got very excited as a bat started creeping out of hiding to the warm light, and even more excited and spooked when it flew out at my head.

                                 

As we explored deeper and deeper into the cave it got harder and harder to breathe with oxygen levels going down so we headed back and distributed the donations. The women and kids were very excited about the tins of sweets we were offering, yet I still preferred the cave exploration. The ride home was amazing to reflect on how big of a world we live in. Even being from big sky country I think I saw more stars than I have ever seen before.

As you can tell reading this I had a great time with the elephants, I wore I smile day in and day out. These elepahnts  need a the love they can get. If anyone is traveling to Thailand look them (BEES) up, and try NOT to ride and elephant. It may turn into the best adventure of your trip and worth every pretty penny.