Hello all!
Where do I begin....
I have just spent the last two weeks doing volunteer work with ele's. First week at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) and the second in Surin (S.E Thailand.)
We arrived at ENP on Mon 12th and met all of the 31 ele's at the park, fed them their morning meal of corn, watermelon and banana's & bathed them in the river in the afternoon. We checked into our rooms later in the day and I had a lovely view looking out onto the river and the grassy land surrounding it. I had a simple double bed with a mossy net covering to keep all the bugs and lizards out. The windows were just holes in the wooden paneling with roll-up blinds covering, and let's just say if it rained I would have been soaked as the 'roof' had copious amounts of gaps in it. But saying that, it was a lovely room and it felt very exotic!
Later that evening we had our introduction and welcome ceremony with the local Sharman, wishing us good luck, health and his blessing.
Everyone retired to bed quite early that night as we were all tired from a long day's traveling.
There were 15 people that week volunteering, we were split up into two groups and each team had different morning and afternoon projects and chores such as poo shoveling, peeling corn, cutting long grass, banana tree cutting, watering plants & bathing & feeding the ele's.
So our week was spent working in the hot sun from 8-11am break for lunch and then 2-5pm until dinner. I fell in love with the gentle creatures when I witnessed one of the baby ele's being sung to sleep by Lek the owner. It was so lovely to watch. She then invited us to lay with the baby until she was peacefully in dream land...

The Elepark was great fun, and really lovely to see all the once mistraeted ele's out in the open having fun and being free.

During the week we had a chat with one of the permanent volunteers at ENP. He told us about a project that is branched from the park called ''The Surin Project.'' It involves taking a small group of volunteers twice a fortnight down to Surin province (Eastern Thailand) to a small village. The village is famous for it's Elephant circus shows. What these tourists are unaware of though, is the horrendous training involved in order to make these ele's do the tricks. Elephants go through malicious 'pajan training' when they are about 2 years old when the owner wants them to learn circus tricks. This involves them being put in a tight man-made wooden cage, chained up on all four legs and beaten until the elephants 'spirit is broken.' The length of this training is usually 1-2 weeks or until the elephnat learns to obey its mahout (master).
Most elephants that are used in shows are malnourished, kept chained up in the sun all day, and are mistreated by their mahouts using a wooden baton with a hook on the end.

The Surin project is a growing challenge to build shelters and water pumps for all elephnats in the village in Surin which see's hundreds of tourists each week. They are currently trying to encourage mahouts to use softer methods of training with love and food rewards instead. If we can acheive this, it means the Thai tourism will still continue, mahout familys will still earn a living and elephants will lead better and healthier lives in the future...

So at the end of our week in Chiang Mai, we made a 24 hour bus journey down to Surin. Our job was to come to the park and build shelters for the ele's chained up in the sun. Eventually there will be shelters for all, constant water for them to drink any time they chose, and regular walks to the river to keep them cool.
Our accommodation was home-stays with the villagers. We slept on the floor on mattresses with a mossy net to cover us in one room, whilst the family slept in the other. Our 'bathroom' consisted of a toilet in which you had to pour buckets of water down instead of flushing it, and our shower was a bucket of water on top of our heads...was actually really refreshing... (maybe an idea for our new bathroom Dad??? hehe)

On our first night we all heard loud shouting and elephant screams, in the morning we found out that one of the mothers had given birth to a baby girl, we were very lucky to get to see a 7 hour old baby ele! She was just like a real bubba - hardly able to stand, red eyes, and always laying down to sleep under her mother....very sweet.

On day three we woke up to find two new additions to our ele family - an 18 year old mother and her 2 month old baby girl, the baby's name was Um Bun and she was adorable. I fell in love with her straight away. She was hilarious to watch and play with, playfully charging into us wanting all the attention, and it was nice that the mother did not seem to mind her being around humans.

By the end of the week we had built 4 strong shelters. An amazing achievement. It was nice to leave knowing that 4 ele's will be out of the sun now :)

At times it was very distressing and emotional for us to see the animals chained up in the heat swaying from side to side in distress and discomfort, but we learnt to realize that it was better for them to be here than on the city streets begging for food. Elephants have very sensitive pads on the bottom of their feet and can feel even the smallest of vibrations, therefore causing them to be extremely scared when all the cars are driving past, loud music from the bars they have to walk past...so at least we are trying to improve their living conditions and treatment in Surin.

Check out: www.elephantnaturefoundation.org to find out more about The park in Chiang Mai which rescues mistreated working elephants and brings them to the park to build up their strength so they can be released back into the wild.

On another note, I am now in Cambodia, have been travellingaround for the last week here with a lovely Aussie girl called Kirsty....will update you soon with my travels in Cambodia!

Love to all...

Xxx