The Elephant Nature Foundation...

Sorry that I've been laggin' on the blog (maybe we'll call it a blag?). I have a ton of excuses but none are really valid. I really wanted to make sure to tell everyone about our time with Elephants in Thailand and so this one's a bit long. Thanks for your patience...

We were wary after our previous experience in Koh Chang but thanks to Maggie’s research, we discovered an amazing elephant sanctuary. The Elephant Nature Foundation in Chiang Mai is a place that anyone who loves elephants (or thinks they might love elephants) needs to visit.



We contacted them and found that the 3-day and 5-day trips were all booked and the only one that fit our travel plans was the 2-day version. Because of our last elephant let-down in Koh Chang, we were also a bit hesitant to sign on to too much before we knew what we were getting into, so that sounded perfect. The morning of our first day we were picked up at our guesthouse at 8am and hopped in the van to head an hour into the surrounding hills north of Chiang Mai. The two girls who picked us up were adorable and happy be able to practice their English with us. They gave us a great first impression as we winded our way up into the hills. There was one other man named Collum from Ireland in our van that was going just for the one day. He was a great guy and really excited about our adventure as well.

As we got nearer our destination, we began passing some of the other elephant “camps” that we’d read about. There must have been four or five camps that we passed. Some offering “combo trips” where you raft the river and then ride the elephants, or ride an ATV and then an elephant, etc. We were happy to pass these by as the description of our place sounded much more like what we looking for.

“There are some of ours.” One of the girls said as she pointed to the river down below. Walking along the wide river bed were four elephants, two tall and two short, and there were a few people walking with them as well. It’s such a cool experience to see elephants just walking around. To look out the car window and see an elephant walking along isn’t something that many people will get to see in their lifetimes. We were already happy and we hadn’t even gotten there yet. We drove a little further and then turned left into the main gate (a very modest, unsuspecting front gate that one might miss if they were driving there themselves). No big sign, no fancy logo, just a few stripped tree trunks nailed together to make a giant archway leading to the dirt road entrance.

B.K. standing near the driveway to the ENF.

As we entered, the driveway opened up on each side so we could see the open fields flanking the driveway, each with a few really tall and wispy trees like out of my idea of what Africa might look like. Each field had elephants standing around in them, some big, some small. At the end of the short drive lied the main structure. We drove right up to it and were immediately greeted by a wonderful Australian woman named Michelle. She had a really unique personality, very warm and friendly with a great sense of humor and at the same time strong and purposeful. You got the feeling that she had been there for some time they way she carried herself. As she gave us the quick welcome tour the spiel rolled off her tongue in a really fun and confident way rather than in an I-do-this-everyday kind of way. “You’ll find bottled water here, toilets are over there, I love to talk about elephants so if it gets too much for you I won’t be offended if you want to stop listening.” Of course we were all hanging on her every word.

Michelle, talking story.

She had been there for five years and she knew the stories behind each elephant. What their names are. How they got there. Who they hang out with. How their love life is going. There are 29 elephants at the Elephant Nature Foundation and Michelle knows each of their life stories inside and out. We learn about B.K. who is now the dominant male for the entire herd, we learn about Lilly who as addicted to the amphetamines that her previous owners pumped into her to make her work harder. We learned about Jokia who was blinded by her previous owners for being disobedient and Mae Perm, Jokia’s soul mate who takes care of her and is always by her side offering her trunk as a way of reassuring Jokia and guiding her.

Jokia and Mae Perm

The stories are freakin' amazing. Then we start to learn about the most incredible story of all. It’s the story of the founder of the ENF, Sangduen Chailert.

Her name is Sanduen but everyone calls her by her nickname, “Lek”. Thai for “small”, Lek is barely pushing 5 feet but we quickly learned that her heart is as big as an elephant’s. Through Michelle’s stories she continues to remind us that this elephant sanctuary is completely thanks to Lek’s vision and determination.

The short story is that Lek grew up in a small village in the hills of Chiang Mai. Her grandfather had an elephant to help with his farming. While growing up, she had a strong bond with this over sized member of their family. This love of elephants spawned an interest in studying elephants for over 10 years. Lek would photograph and chronicle the elephants of Northern Thailand and she became very involved in the elephant community. In November of 2002 she received an urgent phone call concerning a baby elephant whose mother had died and who itself was found stuck between two tree trunks that formed a "V", sick and malnourished. Lek took it upon herself to become the baby elephant's adopted mother. She cared for it night and day, feeding, cleaning, and sleeping with the baby until it finally made a full recovery. She named the elephant Ging Mai (Little Tree).

Her new child became the spark that lead to Lek creating the Elephant Nature Foundation. Her vision was to create a place where elephants can come and have as close to a life in the wild as she could provide. She began raising money to fund the purchase of elephants who had been abused and neglected by their owners. In Thailand, due to the deforestation, the need for elephants in the logging industry plummeted forcing owners to either take their elephants into the trekking industry, or the elephant show world, or even street begging with the elephants. You see, elephants eat A LOT and to provide them with the food they need is expensive. The owners have to do what they can to not only earn money for themselves but also to provide the nourishment that these gentle giants need as well. Street begging looks like the owners taking their elephants into the cities to find tourists who will pay to be able to feed them. Despite the fact that it's "illegal" we actually saw this not only in Chiang Mai but also in Bangkok if you can believe it. The elephant has a plastic bag of bananas in its trunk and it holds it out to the tourists walking by to see if anyone will pay to feed them. And people do. Imagine in the middle of the city a giant elephant walking around, often at night with cameras flashing and horns honking, it's a crazy and sad sight. Elephants get injured all the time by getting hit by speeding cars and we heard that recently an elephant died because it got its foot stuck in a storm drain. Super depressing.

Lek, Founder, Elephant Nature Foundation.

But I digress. Lek's mission is to save as many elephants as she can from horrible conditions and to bring them to her sanctuary. She also has a service that she provides that's called the Jumbo Express. She loads up a river raft made out of huge bamboo stalks with medical supplies and she and her helpers head down the river stopping at various elephant camps to provide free veterinary service to any elephant who needs it. As Michelle tells us more and more about Lek you can't help but see how selfless and devoted she is to helping elephants. So inspiring and such an amazing woman.

So after the other group of visitors arrives, we start walking around the main building. It's made completely of wood and bamboo and the main observation deck is raised high enough that you're at eye level with all of the elephants who are now starting to make their way over to us. It's just about lunch time and the elephants know it. There are volunteers who are busy cutting up watermelon, pineapple, and bananas and throwing them into individual baskets with each elephant's name on it. At the ENF there are 29 elephants so that's a ton of food and a lot of work to prepare.

Preparing lunch... Soaking pineapples in a vitamin solution.

The Elephant Nature Foundation has a program where you can "volunteer" for a week (or many weeks if you can) and help out with the daily chores. You also can pitch in with your specific talents so some people are repairing fences, others are helping with the plumbing, and many are scooping elephant poop into huge carts to keep the place clean. As the place is now surrounded on all three sides with elephants who are extending their trunks out in anticipation of their sweet, sweet lunch the excitement rises. The huge baskets of food are dragged to each location where the elephant eats and our job is to grab the food and give it to our new friends. Oh man, was that cool.

Lunch for my new friend.

Michelle explains that they eat quickly because most of them have had such traumatic pasts that their instinct is to get as much food as they can, but she assures us that none of these lucky elephants are going hungry. Their trunks are so nimble and they're able to wrap their long noses around a piece of watermelon and put it in their mouth and then just like that, they're back again for the next scrumptious morsel. The overflowing baskets of food go quickly and then when they get the last piece of fruit, they cruise back out into their domains.

The next thing on our agenda for the day is to head down to the river to give the elephants a bath. We grab a bucket and a brush and start walking down, side by side with the elephants to the river. Next thing you know, the elephants are easing down into the water and lying down to have us give them a good scrub down. Buckets of water are flying through the air and we all were laughing like little kids. What an experience to be playing in the water with the elephants and touching them and caring for them. This was sweet. This was what we were hoping for. We found it!

Cleaning the tops of elephants who prefer to stand.

When bath time is over the herd starts making its way back towards the main compound but halfway back is a HUGE mud pit that the young elephants waste no time in jumping into. Slipping and sliding on the banks of the pit there's a little push and shove taking place between some of the adolescent elephants and mud flying everywhere. The adults are standing close by watching the fun also and making sure no one gets too crazy. Michelle reminds us that just watching elephants being elephants is really all the entertainment you need and it's so true! At many of the other "parks" you get to see elephants doing tricks, playing instruments, painting, playing polo, etc. After watching a baby elephant slip and slide into a giant mud pit, you can't help but wonder why there aren't more parks like this one.

The kids in the mud pit.

It's our turn for lunch and we headed upstairs where there was the most amazing spread of Thai food that I'd ever seen. Not only did it look good, but it tasted better than any food we'd had thus far. It was a fun lunch as all of the volunteers, the day trippers, and multi-day trippers were all together in one place. A great mix of people from Canada, Ireland, Germany, etc. The mood was high and everyone was in love. Collum, the guy who rode up in our van with us, was supposed to be there for just one day but he was so giddy with excitement that he tried to get his itinerary changed so he could stay up there. He just kept saying to me, "This is it man, this is it." I agreed and was glad that I had two days.

Lunch time at the ENF

After lunch, Michelle told us that she wanted to show us a short video. She warned that parts of it will be very disturbing but that she wants us to watch it because it's important that we learn the truth about elephants in Thailand. A few years back, a young woman came to do a short video on Lek's story for National Geo. That video is the one we were about to watch. It was explained to us that while they were shooting, the woman was following Lek as she was doing her Jumbo Express. While they were out in the field, Lek asked one of the camps if they could film the training process for the elephants. The camp was totally fine with them bringing cameras in and so they were able to get footage of one of the most horrific cases of animal cruelty that you can imagine. For all captive elephants in Thailand, the process of "domesticating" an elephant is called... i'm fogetting the thai word... but translated into english means "to break the spirit". It's a process where the elephant is chained into a small pen made of bamboo stalks that it can barely fit into. Once they get the young elephant into the trap, they chain it's feet together, then proceed to beat and torture the elephant for days and days. They use sleep deprivation and starvation and take bamboo with nails on the ends and poke the elephant viciously, drawing blood even in the most sensitive places. All this to break the elephant and make sure that it's spirit is gone and that it will obey their master's commands. If they survive the torturous experience (some do not) the idea is that they'll now be submissive and do as told.

We watched the video and there was not a dry eye in the group. It was so shocking and disturbing that we were cringing and wriggling in our seats. We learned that what we saw was only a small part of the footage that they took. The fact that the people welcomed in the camera crew pointed out that they didn't feel that what they were doing was wrong. It was just something that Thai elephant trainers have been doing for a long time. Elephants in Thailand have no more legal right than a farm animal. Not considered to be pets like dogs or cats but more like cows or goats. Needless to say, watching this video got our attention.

We learned also that the area around Lek's land is in jeopardy as is much of the forest land in Northern Thailand from illegal logging. Illegal loggers go into the hills and cut down trees to sell for the wood with little recourse. Her surrounding forest where her elephants walk and where she created a place known as "Elephant Haven" were in danger of being cut down. With no support from police or the legal system, she decided to take the matter to a higher power and banded together with the local Buddhist monks. She brought to them long lengths of bright orange cloth (the same fabric and color as a monks robe) and asked them to bless the fabric. Together Lek and the monks took the fabric and declared it a sacrilege to cut down any tree that had the blessed fabric tied around its trunk. They walked through the forest tying tree after tree with the orange band of cloth until the forest was covered with these pious symbols. It worked and she was able to protect her land and the land the her elephants enjoy so much. I bought the video and will gladly show anyone who wants to see it, as I'm not doing it justice and it should really be seen.

This documentary was meant to be shown on Thailand T.V. first but somehow it got messed up and was played internationally which resulted in having the international community come down hard on Thailand and its elephant parks. Many in the animal rights community called for a boycott of Thailand. That might sound reasonable but the problem was that the Thai people blamed Lek and held her responsible for the embarrassment her country felt. Thais are very prideful people and it was perceived that Lek had disgraced not only the elephant trainers but all Thais. Lek's life was in danger and a bounty was put out on her head. She went into hiding and fought behind the scenes to try and save herself. While she was on the lamb, her baby, Ging Mai died unexpectedly. An autopsy showed that the young elephant had been poisoned. Ahhhhh!!!! I get chills just writing about it. Can you believe that? When Michelle was telling us about it, you could see her get choked up and she told us that we get to ask her any questions that we want but to please, please not ask about Ging Mai. That is the one elephant that is too painful to talk about.

After the video we went out on the range and walked with Michelle some more and got a chance to meet some of the other elephants. Michelle's husband Carl is the only non-Thai mahout at the ENF and five years ago he was given the task of being the mahout for their oldest elephant who also happens to be the tallest elephant in all of Thailand. His name turned out to also be Max. Maggie and I became very fond of Max and he is definitely our favorite. Such a noble looking old man. His leg had been broken and he sustained massive injuries when hit by a truck and dragged 15 feet while street begging. You can see the break on his lower front leg and he walks slowly with a limp. He's around 60 years old and he's huge. I asked Michelle's husband how he works with Max and he told me that he basically works on Max's schedule and he doesn't tell Max where to go or what to do and that Max is in charge. They seemed to have a really sweet relationship.

Max & Carl (Michelle's husband)

After not to long it was time for some more food for the elephants and another bath. We got time to just sit and be with the elephants and watch them just be elephants. Again, another spread for us which was even more amazing than lunch. We hung out with the other campers and after a long day, we turned in and went back to our bungalow to get some sleep. The elephants were sleeping not too far from where we lay our heads and it was so fun to hear the sounds of the elephants in the night. The trumpeting sound that you think of when you think of imitating an elephant heared a lot but there's another sound that I didn't know about. It's a really low, deep grumbling noise that sounds like the equivalent of an elephant sized cat's purr. That's a noise I don't ever want to forget. It's a prehistoric sound like when you hear a whale taking a deep breath through its blowhole. These are sounds that are really powerful and moving to me.

The view from our modest bungalow

The next morning we get up and help ourselves to the coffee and tea that's waiting for us in the dining area. The second day is much less structured than the first. The fun thing about the morning is that you get to go out for a walk with some of the elephants. We headed out and walked south along the river. Elephants are so graceful and gentle when they walk. I read that when elephants run, the pressure that they put on the ground relative to their body weight is less than what a deer displaces relative to their weight. When you watch their big feet with those huge toenails gently touch down and see their ankles flex and then lift again, it's magical to think that something that giant can be so careful and gentle. We walk on down the river and later on we see the vans approaching down the road with the next group of lucky people just as we'd done the day before. "Oh look, those are some of ours" the girl must be telling them. And there we were, walking along with our new friends...life just couldn't be better. "This is it man, this is really it." kept popping into my head. It really was.

Walking back to the main building.

So, there are all kinds of things that the ENF needs. The money they raise goes toward funding their operation, buying hurt elephants from their owners who can no longer care for them, the Jumbo Express, etc. etc. You can adopt an elephant, where your donation will go toward paying for their food for the year, etc. What I decided that I would like to do is bring as much attention to Lek and her mission as possible. I've decided to make it my mission to get Lek on Oprah, 60 Minutes, etc. and let her story be told. The woman's video that I bought was great but it needs the sequel done. It needs to have the follow up to show all of the good that has been done since it was made. Her story is really a great novel, an amazing movie, a fantastic documentary, etc. etc. Who knows, maybe I'll be back here with a film crew?

So, I'm starting here by writing this blog entry so my family and friends know about Lek and the Elephant Nature Foundation. My next step is to tap into some of the resources that I have to see how I can start spreading the word.

Me, Lek, & Maggie (Elephant Max over Lek's shoulder)

If you find yourself in Thailand or you have friends who are going to Thailand, make sure that the ENF is on your list. It's an amazing experience.

ENF's new website is here: www.elephantnaturefoundation.org

They're awaiting the green light for their "Foundation" status from the gov't to change over and their old site is here: www.elephantnaturepark.org This site has some videos and more about Lek and her bio.

More to come!

Love,

Max