Your virtual Thailand vacation continues as Thor and I visit The Hillside Retreat Elephant Sanctuary next to the Khao Sok wilderness park.
NOTE: “And now for something completely different.” Thor and I made our first trip to Asia — the beautiful country of Thailand. We were lucky to squeak through the pandemic flight closures in January/February of 2020 as we returned from our three-week trip. Since more travel has now become a distant prospect, we hope you’ll take a virtual vacation with us in the following weeks. (This blog series started on June 13.)
After our nature walk around Our Jungle House eco-lodge, Thor and I boarded a van for a short drive along the Khao Sok park border to visit the elephant sanctuary recommended as the most ethical of nearby tourist attractions. Along the way, we enjoyed the lush jungle scenery and the sight of elephants walking along the road with their trainers, mahouts, following behind on scooters. (Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a photo.) The elephants obviously knew where they were going.
The dramatic, rocky upthrusts of limestone karsts punctuate the lush greenery.
We were warned that some of the other elephant “experiences” were exploiting and overworking the elephants by giving tourists rides on their backs. The Hillside Retreat offers a nurturing home for retired or injured/rehabilitated Asian elephants. Many of the elephants have worked in logging or other fields not employing elephants as much now, and their owners/trainers, or mahouts, cannot afford the high cost of feeding them.
After a bit of education, our first task at the sanctuary was cutting up fruit to feed to our assigned elephant.
We quickly fell in love with sweet “Dawn” (the translation of her Thai name, which I forgot to write down). 83 years old and blind, she had trouble finding the fruit with her trunk as the others did, so we tapped the side of her mouth to signal her before slipping the food directly into her mouth. She was very gentle.
Then, wearing swimsuits, we showered to protect the elephants and followed them as the mahouts guided them to their favorite activity, mud bathing. The elephants prefer mud bathing to fresh water, as the mud moisturizes their skin and protects them from bugs and too much sun. We were encouraged to get into the mud with them and plaster their sides. Much messy fun ensued!
Next came the “car wash” station that sprayed water to clean off the mud from elephants and people.
Then into a lovely freshwater pool, where we were given brushes and coconut-shell bowls to cleanse and scrub off the remaining mud. Dawn seemed to enjoy the attention.
Unfortunately, the sanctuary was forced to close to visitors in March, with the Covid virus lockdowns, and donations are sorely needed to keep the elephants fed. An adult elephant can eat 300 pounds of food a day! The Sanctuary is allied with the Southern Thailand Elephant Foundation, a nonprofit run mostly by volunteers, which seeks to keep the elephants fed. Starvation threatens them, with no tourist dollars supporting them. I just contributed here:
Best wishes to sweet Dawn and her sisters!
next week: We hike into the Khao Sok National Park wilderness.
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is available in print and ebook: The Ariadne Connection. It’s a near-future thriller set in the Greek islands. “Technology triggers a deadly new plague. Can a healer find the cure?” The novel has received the Chanticleer Global Thriller Grand Prize and the Cygnus Award for Speculative Fiction. Sara has recently returned from another research trip in Greece and is back at work on the sequel, The Ariadne Disconnect. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
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