Elephants Rescue.

We were in Chang Mai. We had sought assistance from the hotel travel desk to obtain onward
bus tickets. As I stood speaking with the travel agent my eye was drawn to the rainbow display
of folded leaflets advertising local activities.
My focus rested on a pamphlet for the Maerim Elephant Sanctuary. Plucking the leaflet off the
display I wandered back to my room.
Everyone loves elephants. But why do they? I had never given it much thought.
I have a dislike of horses. But thats easy to explain – they are too big, too clever and and too
unpredictable.

So why do I love Elephants? They are massive and have the largest brain of all land Mammals.
It has to be something to do with childhood. Something in the Disneyficiaiton of the Elephant
captured my joyous childhood into one cartoon animal?
They are smart, they are family oriented. The babies are very cute.
But they are also powerful and farmers don’t like them. We watched them in Sri Lanka
trampling a live electric fence.
Apparently they are not bothered about electric fences. But they are bothered by bee stings and horsefly bites. So despite that enormous power and thick skin they can be irritated in the same way we are.
Also in Sri Lanka I became very anxious by the actions of an elephant on aptly named ‘Elephant Road’. We were in an open topped tuk tuk. The elephant we had been delighted to find on the side of the road, had decided that we probably had cake and started towards us at a great pace, prompting me to scream ‘drive drive’!
So I have a healthy respect for elephants and the fact that if they wanted to they can run and
run fast.
Cautiously considering a trip to an elephant sanctuary I was reminded that I still have guilt about swimming with the dolphins in Dominican Republic twenty years ago. Would I have the same misgivings after a day with Maerim Elephant Sanctuary?
I booked us both on the trip the following day. Sometimes you have to go and decide for yourself.

The next morning we were met by the sanctuary’s jeep and escorted to their base. Pacing up
and down along the fence was a lone elephant with his trunk out stretched – obviously he knew that we ‘new recruits’ had arrived and that bananas would follow.
We changed our clothes to look more like the handlers, and then the small assembled group of
elephantophiles, mahouts for the day, were given cloth bags to fill with
bananas. A massive amount of bananas were deposited in a huge plastic
drum and we were encouraged to fill as many bags as we could carry. The elephant who had waited patiently by the fence was the first to be fed, and
would happily let you touch him and cuddle his trunk.
I do wonder if he actually liked this human interaction or if he was just a
sucker for a banana?

The Sanctuary’s professional photographer spent the morning with us. We
added whole watermelons to our food supplies and wandered into a
compound with six or so elephants and their mahouts. Again the elephants
would put up with you touching them and would perform the trick of eating a
whole watermelon in one go if you placed it inside his mouth.
It was an anxiety inducing experience. I doubt we were ever in any real
danger, but I certainly felt very small and that I could be squashed like a fly,
should I run out of bananas.

During the day we escaped to the fields and cut crops with machettes for our
elephants.
A delicious noodle based chicken dish was provided and you were able to
cook and season your own version to spice it to you tastes.
In the afternoon we walked the elephants to the mud hole and slathered our
elephants with muddy goodness, before walking them to the pond to wash it
all off again.

It’s a bit unnerving sharing a pool with an elephant. You cant see where most
of the elephant is when he is lying down in the muddy water. You could
easily get tangled in its feet and then theres the trunk which pops above water
to surprise you. A pachyderm periscope.
The elephants at this sanctuary have been rescued from logging and
performing. We were told that they couldn’t be returned to the wild as they
wouldn’t know how to survive. But plans are afoot to buy more land so that
the elephants can enjoy more room within a wooded forest.
The end of the afternoon was spent enjoying the outside pool. The elephant
‘in the corner of the fence’ resumed his position – ahead of a late afternoon
group of tourists.

Clever elephant. Obviously knows the routine. Clever enough to know the
time, but not clever enough to fend for itself if returned to the wild?
Did I enjoy my day? Well yes, very much. It was such a wonderful
experience, and worth every penny spent.
My husband bought all the photos that the photographer took of us and paid
for them to be put on a USB stick. Why? Because he said he hadn’t seen me
looking so happy for ages. Certainly I had a smile plastered across my face
for most of the day. I was honoured to have spent time with these enormous
animals. I wondered what sort of life experience had led them to this point. I
was sad for their past but confident about their future ……so long as the
banana supply didnt dry up.
Perhaps these elephants, unable to be part of a ‘family group’ now see each
other and their Mahouts as their family group? We won’t ever know, but their
kindness and gentility really touched me.
It would be a travesty if these beautiful animals were ever allowed to become
extinct. If, in the children’s story books of the future, references to an elephant
were similar to todays references to dinosaurs. Something massive and
powerful which used to live on earth, but doesnt exist anymore.
Perhaps thats why on the 12th of August each year we have world elephant
day, to remind us of what we would be missing, if we ever allowed this to
happen.