Back in Chiang Mai and able to use a computer after a month in Thailand! Since i last wrote I have been hard at work volunteering with the elephant nature foundation and working at the elephant nature park. I have learned so much about elephants in my time here and have come to understand more about the complicated yet strong relationship thai people have with these animals. Elephants are an extemely important part of the tourist industry here-used for trekking-street begging and circus performances, creating a means of life for a great number of thai people-but there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that most people know nothing about. The number of asian elephants and thai elephants is greatly decreasing and the number of free wild elephants is extremely small. Most elephants have been domesticated-broken up from their family units at young ages and then abused and chained for days in a process to make them submissive to their mahout(an elephant keeper). Once they have been "tamed" the mahouts control them through fear and carry a hook with them that they use on the elephants head and body when forcingthe elephant to do something. The founder of the elephant nature park, Lek, however is trying to change this abusive relationship. At her park the mahouts are forbidden to use a hook and instead must use positive reinforcement. Her ultimate goal is to release some of the now healthy domestic elephants she has rescued back into the wild and their natural habitat- away from the busy city streets and tourist centers. Being able to help out this cause and contribute to the conservation of the asian elephants has been an experiene I will never forget. I spent three weeks working at the park in chiang mai and in my second week here I was invited to work for one week on a new elephant conservation project in Surin-a province in east thailand bordering Cambodia. Very different experiences but both were extremely rewarding!

I was picked up from my hotel the morning of October 12th and with a group of about 25 volunteers was driven an hour east of Chiang Mai to the Mae Taeng Valley. The park is situated on acres of lush green jungle with a a large river running through the middle of it all. My room was located above the main volunteer structure-made of wood, bamboo and grass thatched roofs- and I had one of the best views in the park. I overlooked the river and can see almost the whole park from my balcony. Its a great place to watch the elephants play, bathe and wander about. It is so peaceful here and my favorit time of day is the cool, quiet early mornings when almost everyone is still asleep. I can sit on my porch and watch the elephants with the mahouts slowly make their way out onto the open land for their day time adventures. The elephants have to be chained-very loosely- at night otherwise they mischeviously make their way into neighboring farmlands and eat the crops.

My days here consist of morning chores ranging from cleaning and preparing elephant food to shoveling poo/cleaning elephant shelters to hacking through fields of corn and grass with a machete. As you can imagine after four weeks I have become quite proficient at it all. Afternoons are spent feeding and bathing the elephant-very enjoyable and always makes me smile watching the elephants role and swim about in the water. Once clean however the elephants immediately proceed to find mud and dirt and then coat themseves with it(it acts as a barrier to the sun for their sensitive skin). Needless to say they always leave the river almost more dirty then when they came.

Late afternoons and evenings involve more chores aorund the park but are also great times to meet and talk witht he traveling/international volunteers. With new volunteer groups coming to the park every week I have been able to make some great friends and meet many interesting people. In the evening we had delicious buffet dinners and then relaxed with thai massages, games of cards and even one night of the week attended a concert put on by the mahouts.

Besides the elephants there are also about 50 dogs at the park. I have been able to help out with minor medical care-treating wounds from dog fights, ear infections, and eye infections. As far as the elephants go I have worked with the vet several times, observed abscesses and cracked nail treatment and learned about the problems and subsequent treatment common to the elephants at the park and all over thailand. In my last week I was even able to get up close and personal with the elephants cleaning and medicating wounds on their skin. Many of the elephants here have suffered from previous injuries from working in logging camps in burma where they were often drugged with amphetamines and made to work long hours, or from beng injured in abusive breeding programs- chained and raped often resulting in broken hips or back legs from the bulls tusks repeatedly striking their backs. One of the elephants at the park limps around, park of her back foot blown off from a land mine.

The park however acts as a rehab center for a few of the many sick and injured or mentally unwell elephants and it is truly a haven for them. As I have learned from my time at the park elephants are extermely intelligent and have an amazing memory-abused elephants show signs of post traumatic stress disorder and rock back and forth over and over-heartbreaking to actually see.

The project I worked on in Surin is relatively new and while the park in chiang mai is a haven for the elephants the location we volunteered at in Surin is like a torture zone. In surin the foundation is trying to recreate the park but as of now the place is filled with working elephants used for the circus, street begging and trekking. The foundation is working with individual mahouts and their elephants on the condition that they stop using their hooks and stop using the elephants for work. This is extremely hard as many of the mahouts there live off the money they make from their elepahnts. Therefore only 7 mahouts out of about 150 in the town are involved in the project. Surin was physically alot of work, planting, cutting grass and corn, weeding in extremely hot conditions, and was also mentally draining. We lived in the mahouts houses and were surrounded by elephants not involved in the project that were chained up all day in the sun with little food and almost no shade. So many spent hours rocking back and forth displaying their extreme stress. Almost all looked malnourished and had wounds all over from the hooking by their mahouts. All hard to see but this experience truly gave me an insight into the normal conditions of the domestic working elephants in thailand.

This past month has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Words cannot describe how much I have fallen in love with the park, the people and the elephants. One month went by much too fast and leaving the park was extremely difficult. Although I will still go to Laos and Cambodia I have changed my plans to return to the park at the end of my trip and will spend my last week working again. A new veterinarian is coming from India this month and I have made arrangements to shadow him and get more one on one time with the elephants while helping to treat them. If you want to learn more about the park just check out the website -elephantnaturepark.org- It is an experience not to be missed if ever traveling in thailand.

Im off too Laos this afternoon and will be spending the next few days in Luang Prabang and then the rest of the week in Vientiene. Im excited to get on the road and explore more of southeast asia. I look forward to a change of pace over the next few weeks....look for more updates to the blog after my week in Laos!