Elephant Nature Park

With great sadness we left Phuket and the dogs but we are of to Chiang Mai and the Elephant Park for a week of volunteering. Our guest house was quite shabby but for one night it was ok, we found the famous night market and it was huge. The market sold everything you could ever want and a great variety of food.
So in the morning we were picked up by the van and taken to park, north of Chiang Mai which took just over the hour. This whole park in a funny way reminds me of Jurassic Park with its large steel fencing and sliding gates. So on route we watched a video about the park and its founder Lek and what she has achieved in so few years. Once our rooms were sorted and lunch was finished at 1pm we had a talk and watched another video about the cruelty the young elephants suffer.
A truck arrived full of bananas and water melon which we unloaded, this is a everyday event.
Before dinner the local chief and his wife did a blessing ceremony for us all and we were given bracelets to wear. The food is all vegetarian and basically I lived on plain rice, chips and they did serve pasta on two nights.
On Tuesday our first job was to meet after breakfast at 8am and put into groups and each group does a different job each day. Our group A is cutting corn, we had to ride in an open truck standing for an hour to reach the corn field. We were given a machete and shown how to cut the corn, we all worked a line and the local men tired the corn up ready for us to load onto the truck. Once the field was cut we stopped for lunch before loading the two lorries up ready to take back to the park for the elephants nightly feed. We were back at the park early afternoon and that was our days work done, time for a shower even if it is cold.
Wednesdays schedule is cleaning up the elephant shelters of poo and uneaten corn from the night before. So after breakfast we collect our shovels and head for the shelters and start shovelling poo.
We finished this around 10am so we went and walked some dogs, we were asked to walk the dogs with wheels. There is 3 dogs at the shelter who have lost the use of their back legs and some carts with wheels have been made for them. These dogs just loved their walks, they were so happy sniffing around in the grass and watching the elephants and water buffalo walk by.
In the afternoon we got to walk out and be with the elephants, there is a family that has a 4yr and 4 month old baby. The herd is very protective over them and when a dog barked they all crowded around the baby to protect it, very sweet to see. We then went into the river and throw buckets of water over the elephants while they fed.
They say there is wifi here but it's so hit and miss here it's frustrating, better they tell you that there is no wifi rather than very bad wifi.
Thursday is Leks birthday and it's tradition that everyone plants trees for her, so all day we planted trees along the river bank and around the shelters. Thursday is cleaning day and the room basically had its bin emptied and the bed changed. Strangely enough after the cleaning day we started to get hot water but it was so hot we had to mix it with cold water in a bowl as the temperature couldn't be turned down.
So on Friday we worked in the kitchen unloading the fruit trucks then washing the fruit ready for the elephant treats. We had a go at chopping the melons and pumpkins but we were too slow and pretty bad at it. After lunch it was time to collect the drift wood from the river bank, this was hard work as it was very hot. We had another chance that afternoon to feed the elephants and wash them in the river which was a nice surprise.
Saturday being our last work day was poo shovelling again which I don't mind as we get time to spend with the elephants. After lunch we had a group photo session then free time. I sat on the skywalk and watched the elephants in the river and have mud baths. That evening before dinner Lek gave a talk on the park and the elephant industry around the world, makes you think about the next time you see any animal performing for us and what goes on behind the scene.
Sunday morning we had to unload some water melon trucks before we could shower and check out our rooms. After lunch we left the park at 1pm and headed for the airport for our next flight to Kuala Lumpur.
I really enjoyed the park but a lot of improvements could be made without too much effort.