"Melephant" is to "elephant" as "kitty" is to "cat". That's a new word Christine and I coined, and it comes from "My Elephant". Clearly, we got attached to our elephants already.
The second day started at 6:15a when I crawled out of bed. At 6:30a, real and fake mahouts headed for the jungle to pick up our elephants. The light was gorgeous in the morning, but I had left my camera at the homestay hut (you'll find out soon why I carried no camera --- I was about to get very wet); thankfully, Supat walked along with us and took some photos. Which reminds me that the service we have received here has been spectacular --- Supat's English is more than adequate, he always has water bottles ready at the right moment, he took some excellent photos with my camera later in the day, and is happy to translate whenever we need to talk to a local who doesn't speak English. Our mahouts are equally nice, helpful, and patient. The whole experience is like staying at a large nature resort, except that the cost is $33 a day (per person) and includes full-day elephant riding lessons.
On the walk back, we crossed the same stream we had crossed the day before, only this time the mahouts told the elephants to sit down while we were in the water. Which meant we went in too. We gave our elephants a bath, which was a lot of fun despite the muddy water and the occasional floating elephant dung. Of course we got drenched in the process. Once the elephants were back in the main TECC area, the mahouts took over while us fakes waited outside our hut for Supat to bring us a simple yet yummy breakfast: toast, butter, eggs, and mango. After a short nap, we were off again for more training. Training takes place right before or after the elephant show, since the elephants are already in the mood to handle pesky tourists. We go through a subset of the commands that our elephant performs on each show, with the end goal being for us to be the elephant's mahouts during the final day of our stay (with the real mahout next to the elephant on the ground, otherwise, God help us and the audience). In this session, we learned how to use our body alongside our voice to instruct the elephant, and I made good progress. When the session was over, the elephants got another bath by their real mahouts, while us fakes went to visit the elephant hospital...
... what a jarring experience that was! One elephant has a severed trunk --- a log fell on it and cut it in half. The wound has healed, but given how critical the trunk is (to smell and identify food or other elephants, to pick up stuff, to push things, to guide babies to the teats, etc.), the loss is major. Another patient was a baby who fell down a hill and whose rear legs are now paralyzed; it was hanging from an overhead crane (like a baby swing) with the mother next to it. The saddest patient though was a big elephant that was caught in a forest fire. A crew of four people spray it daily with antiseptic, cut off the dead skin, apply some protective cream, and nurse its blisters. Its coloration is no longer gray, but instead fresh pink covers most of its body. The total recovery period is three months, and the poor guy is only one month into treatment. By the way, all Thai elephants can receive treatment for free at this facility.
We next took a ride on an elephant, meaning that we went on a regular seat, strapped onto the elephant's back, right behind the mahout. I honestly think it's far, far easier to ride like a mahout: you are closer to the ground (which reduces the wobbling), you can sense the elephant under your butt (which helps you predict its movements), and you have no restrains like pillows, armrests, or a safety chain (which makes it much easier to move without bumping onto things in order to compensate for the movements you sense on your butt).
Then it was time for another training session. This time we had company --- one of whom was a German tourist named Tilo. For those who do not know, Brigitte (Christine's sister) calls me Tilo, which she thought was a made-up name. Turns out, it's a rare, but quite old German name (though it's spelled Thilo). Hm. Anyway, this training session went very well. I think my elephant understood a couple of commands when coupled with the right body movements; her mahout, Nuk, also taught me a few commands that are not part of the standard training and the elephant show. One of them was getting the elephant to drink; Christine and her elephant Cho Cho joined us on the lake bank too, and then Christine ordered Cho Cho to spray water from his trunk onto me... he obeyed! My elephant, Pat Chuop, was too much of a lady to respond in kind (i.e. she hasn't learned that command)! Though, to be fair, it was a hot enough day that the spraying was thoroughly welcome and Christine would have been delighted if Pat Chuop could return the favour.
Throughout my training, it was amazing for me to be able to learn so much from Nuk --- somebody with whom I share the love for the same elephant but no common language... Impromptu sign language got us quite far as we discovered when we next took our elephants to the jungle for the night: the elephants suddenly started getting agitated (trumpetting and making other noises) for no apparent reason; with sign language and cross-language sounds (like "moo"), Nuk explained to me that the elephants smelled some cow shit on the road, elephants are afraid of cows, and thus start running when they see them, throwing off their fake mahouts in the process, and hence we had to change course... pretty elaborate communication there.
The trip back also included another bathing stop. Supat was carrying all the cameras (including mine) and took some very good photos. This stop was special because the elephants put their heads in the water, and so we got completely drenched ourselves. And with six elephants present, dung was aplenty too.
Talking of shit, they make paper out of elephant dung at the TECC, which is an employment opportunity for the mahouts' families (along with maid services for the homestay). They must be making lots of it given how much dung an elephant produces: they eat 300 pounds of food a day, and it quickly comes out the other end. Next time I am bathing my elephant and get surrounded by dung balls (whose size is between a baseball and a volleyball), I will think "raw paper" and keep bathing her. To end the shit-talk, when they pee, it's like turning on a high-flow bath tap... and it lasts about 10 seconds too! I wish I had a bladder that big. Tip: in case you are behind an elephant that needs to relieve itself, you thankfully get a short warning since the elephant spreads its back legs (which takes a few moments as they move slowly) before the torrent begins.
The second day ended with dinner, as usual. The other fake mahouts joined us, and so we had a Swiss, a German, and two Brits join us around the dinner table; sadly, the locals' family ate on a separate mat with Supat. The rest of us had a good time eating ants. Yes, fried ants, like the ones that swarmed the first day's dinner. Actually, that was just the appetizer --- a very rare treat indeed because, you see, that food is only served once a year when the rains bring them out; the number of live ants was minimal today as it hadn't rained, so our timing was just perfect to taste this rare specialty. Christine had one, I had two (the second one just to take a photo of me eating it), and, well, it was yummy --- tasted like potato chips, as Thilo observed, because all you really taste is the oil. Crunchy!
Have I mentioned that my wife is a linguistic chameleon? Wherever we travel, she absorbs like a sponge expressions, accents, and other language features she encounters. In Germany, she picked up the fact that Germans love to start a sentence with an emphatic "So". And when the British couple joined the ranks of us fake mahouts, Christine picked up their sentence intonation (not the accent)! It all goes away after a day, but it's amazing to see how adaptable she is... heck, I still have a Greek accent after 15 years in the States!
Oh yes, I also dropped my pants at dinner. They were so wet from
elephant bathing, and since I was wearing my swimsuit (shorts)
underneath, I just removed my mahout pants to wring them. It was only
when I heard the roaring laughter of the others that I realized how
ridiculous I looked in my cowboy hat, mahout shirt, what looked like
boxer shorts, and cowboy boots. Sigh... But this reminds me: the
mahout clothes were given to us from the TECC as part of the
program. The fabric is like jeans, the button-shirt is airy and comfy,
and the pants are
one-size-fits-all-including-Oprah-on-her-big-girl-days with a
drawstring. Quite a nice souvenir; I'll wear it next time I sit on my
cat.
Posted by Toli at May 15, 2004 06:34 AM