Elephants — Give Yourself Something to Write About — Dark Fantasy Novels

Hey y’all,

So, yesterday I hung out with half a dozen elephants.

If you are ever in Chiang Mai, the most ethical company for this kind of tour is Into the Wild Elephant Camp. Due to animal activism, many of the companies have shifted away from riding elephants to caring for them.

However, many are still putting these magnificent creatures into pens and chaining them up, and not caring for them all that well. We saw them at other camps on the way to this one.

At this place, the elephants roam the property freely and they are VERY happy elephants.

Here’s the link:

https://www.intothewildelephantcamp.com/

Elephants are awesome! Intimidating, but awesome, and yesterday was magical. Even if I got injured, it was a fabulous day.

For the record, it wasn’t the elephants’ fault. It was the guide’s for guiding me to wet, jagged rocks and mine for not sticking with the direction I had chosen.

I was part of a group of 6 who signed up for the all-day experience. A solo dude traveler from Scotland, a couple from Ireland, a brother and sister from Germany, and me.

As soon as we arrived, we changed into red poncho-type tops, so the elephants would recognize us as their herd.

I think sugar cane helped sweeten them up towards us because that’s the first thing we did. We each got a bag of sugar cane the same color as our poncho, and the elephants were all about us then.

6 elephants for 6 of us. 2 large, fully grown elephants and 4 young and growing elephants.

Sometime next year, it will be 7 elephants because one of them is pregnant. She’s 1 year into it, and we could feel her baby bump on both sides.

Did you know elephants are pregnant for 2 YEARS??!!!! Our guide told us the baby elephant will be about 2 meters when it’s born. Poor elephant mama!

The elephants ignored the 1 elephant/person rule and swarmed to whomever had sugar cane in hand. Since I took my time feeding my elephant, I still had sugar cane when everybody else was out. At one point, I was swarmed with 3 elephant trunks around me.

They could smell the sugar, I tell you.

I guess elephants, like humans, have a thing for sweetness.

Anyway, our tour entailed feeding the elephants, hiking with the elephants, hanging out with the elephants while they fed on anything green, coming back for lunch, feeding the pregnant elephant our lunch leftovers (she was the only one who hung around where we were eating), smashing and mashing the “elephant medicine” – came from the source, various foods like rice, bananas, sugar cane cubes, and bitter root and other stuff mashed together manually to make a ball of vitamin and mineral mush – and feeding them a ball of gunk apiece.

Then we gave the elephants a mud bath and took them to the deeper pond where they rolled around in the water.

We splashed them and they splashed us. But they were definitely more comfortable and playful with the staff who works with and cares for them every day. They acted like giant, goofy dogs – especially the young elephants, who sprayed all of us from their trunks.

The two giants were more dignified. One of them wouldn’t get in the pool with us. The pregnant one did though. But no rolling around in the water for her.

Anyway, to experience this piece of specialness was worth slipping on a rock. That happened at the first leg of the hike. We walked single file with elephants in front of and behind us.

I had fallen behind with Scottish Joey and the elephants made it to the creek ahead of us. They splashed and sprayed themselves and got the rocks wet. Joey found another route further up the creek bed. I was taking that way, and should have stuck with it because the rocks were dry.

But like an idiot, I listened to the guide who said the rocks right next to the elephants were a better route.

It wasn’t.

I made it across two rocks before I slipped on the third. I fell on my right shin and flopped gracelessly into the creek.

I was right next to the elephants when it happened, and made some kind of shriek because my leg hurt like hell. The guides got me out of there quickly and the elephants made snuffling, distressed noises and came out of the creek when I did, swinging their trunks and one of the bigger ones was scratching the ground with its giant foot.

“See, the elephants are worried about you! They know something happened and it scared them too.”

I don’t know if that was actually true, or if the guide lied to keep me from freaking out.

I was more than a little intimidated. I felt compelled to bow to the elephants to tell them I was fine, even with blood streaming down my leg.

No OCD concerns about germs, health, and safety over here. One of the guides patted at my wounds with his sandy hands, and the Irish nurse cringed and thought to herself: “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t do that.”

We kept hiking.

Other than asking me if I was all right from time to time, the tour went on and the guide assured me I’d get my leg cleaned up during lunch.

“Do you have antibacterial cream?”

“We have alcohol.”

We hung out with the elephants that ignored us as they fed on the grasses and branches and tore down anything that was in their way.

My throbbing, torn up leg distracted me some, but no way was I going to let that get in the way.

At lunch, my leg did get cleaned up while I listened to the Europeans discussing politics.

It started with Scottish Joey asking if they thought Britain was nuts because of Brexit. Apparently, a big election is happening in Ireland as well. And it struck me how much knowledge they had over the social and political state of their respective countries.

Then it was time for elephant medicine, mud baths and the swim.

Swimming with the elephants was my favorite part, and it was also the grand finale. I forgot my bathing suit, but I still went in.

So yeah, I’m having some gorgeous experiences on this trip.

Peace,

Mana

Hey y’all,

For my last day in Luang Prabang, Laos, I had the grand adventure of kayaking on the Mekong River for a few hours. The main goal was to see the Pakou caves that were well known for having over a 1000 Buddhas, many of which were hundreds of years old, and many of which were headless. They were made of earth and fell apart over time.

Before we got there, we had the unfortunate experience of having lunch with some poorly treated elephants. That was not part of the tour description by the way.

Activism for the humane treatment elephants has spread far and wide, and has really impacted elephant tourism in Chiang Mai and Thailand. Most of the tours advertised are caring for the elephants and feeding them, but not riding them.

That kind of awareness has not fully reached Laos. I would say what is offered is about half and half. There were still tours advertising a chance to ride an elephant, as well as the humane caring for them.

Not the place we stopped for lunch, however. It was actually pretty frigging awful.

As we were walking up the hill, I heard a rustling in the bushes to my left. At first, I was excited to see an elephant coming out of the brush, swinging its trunk. Then I heard some guy yelling at it, and then I saw the elephant was being used as a beast of burden and dragging a couple of logs.

Song, our guide, warned me to be careful and to steer clear. I hustled up the hill and past the maligned elephant. But there were 2 more where we’d be eating.

Where we ate, the elephants were chained up and not given much space to move. They seemed restless, swinging their trunks and fluttering their ears, while taking what steps they could to move around. There was no water and no food nearby for them, and they were pretty much hanging out close to their own feces.

Song, our guide, told us to be careful because you never knew when the elephants would be calm and friendly, or angry and aggressive.

Well yeah.

The elephants were clearly not happy. I could hardly blame them. The only kindness extended to the two near our lunch was that at least they were chained up in the shade.

The bitter irony of this was that the eco-touring company’s name was “White Elephant Tours.”

The German kids I was the kayaking tour with were aware. One of them said: “I’m not spending any money here. Elephants are such intelligent animals. They know what’s happening to them.”

Good to see this kind of awareness outside of Portland. Apparently, elephant welfare has spread far; but in Luang Prabang, Laos, it still needs to spread further.

I don’t understand why the elephants were treated so poorly. Luang Prabang used to be known as the land of a million elephants.

Also, from what I’ve seen in the temples, the elephant is one of Buddhism’s sacred animals. In India, the Hindus treat their sacred cows and bulls like royalty. They go wherever they want and do whatever they want. So it’s baffling to me that the mentality would so different in Laos and in Thailand in the recent past.

This was a bit of an unusual trip in that I joined a small group who had been trekking for a couple of days. I had signed up for a sole kayak tour earlier in the week, but couldn’t make it because I woke up with a headache.

Financially at least, White Elephant Tours was very nice. The cost of the tour was $450,000 kip (about 50 bucks). Since I dropped at the last minute, they couldn’t refund my money, which I didn’t expect anyway. But to join this group because everything had already been set and paid for, I only to pay $100,000 kip (or a little over 10 bucks). So I rode in the back of a tuk tuk for 1 ½ hours to pick up three German students and their tour guide, Song, who had been on a 2-day trek and the last leg of their package was to hit the water of the Mekong River in kayaks. We started with 2 guys and a girl. But apparently, the girl didn’t take care of herself during the trek. She didn’t drink enough water and by the 3rd day was so dehydrated that she felt light-headed and nauseous. She didn’t make it to the Pakou caves of 1000 Buddhas. She had the tuk tuk driver pick her up at lunch.

The caves were cool with all the Buddhas, but my favorite part was the kayaking. The Mekong River was far more beautiful the further we were from Luang Prabang.

I love witnessing the world from the level of the water. To see this area from the river is such a different perspective. The water buffaloes at the river’s edge, the fishermen fishing and harvesting river weed. (It’s the river version of seaweed, an acquired taste. A bit more bitter and pungent than seaweed.) The limestone cliffs where there was a pause before the echo were pretty spectacular too.

I love kayaking.

And this was the perfect last adventure before I left Laos.

The bottles of lao lao whiskey with baby cobras and scorpions and green snakes were pretty creepy and macabre. According to Song, they were for medicinal purposes. By absorbing the essence of the snake or scorpion, certain ailments could be healed.

Photo by yours truly. Really, how could I not include a picture!

That puts the voodoo doctors in New Orleans to shame.

Peace,

Mana