Elephant Valley….

A bit of a backtrack on this one, back to Chiang Rai, and an elephant sanctuary worth a mention.
We met Jack while considering the option of going to ‘Elephant Valley’ which we’d seen advertised regularly. After 10 minutes with Jack we were signed up….

A young Englishman, Jack had worked for an NGO in Cambodia, with elephants, for 10 years before coming to Thailand, and together with a Thai partner and 1 other, they started their own sanctuary. 40 acres and 6 ‘rescue’ elephants thus far, Jacks vision is that these, and more, will ultimately re-become elephants. The elephants still have their mahouts, but gone are the bull-hooks and cruel tactics to ‘train’ the creatures to work or perform tricks…..a gentle tug on an ear, and words are the training aids in use here. And the training is just to instill natural elephant behaviour, as opposed to the lessons that these elephants have had to learn within their previous years of captivity.
The group here consists of one bull, four adult females, and one young female. The only two that appear to be ‘friends’, are one of the adult females and the young one. These two stay together constantly while all the others remain solitary. It was endearing to watch the antics of the two, especially whilst swimming…..auntie staying close to make sure the younger was able to get up the slippery bank when necessary, and the water-play.

The bull has his mahout with him most of the time, and still has a drag-chain round one foot….This because he has a tendency to misbehave, and I guess an elephant with large tusks and a bad attitude could cause quite a bit of damage should he run amok….!

We got to sit an watch these fabulous beasts at 2 or 3 various sites round the property, while they just went about their elephant business, and Jack talked about them, his dream, elephants in general, world affairs…..in fact just about any topic you could name, Jack being a constant talker. His passion and commitment are clear, though, and I think an elephant world with Jack in it is definitely a better place.

After some hours of swimming and grazing, the herd ambled back to where they are hosed down and scrubbed, and I swear I could see the pleasure on their faces as this was happening….I was even lucky enough to capture a tender moment between elephant and mahout….

At the end of the day we all got to feed the gang with pieces of banana tree, after which they wandered off to fresh pasture….