THE DAY MY DREAM CAME TRUE

Ayutthaya, Thailand

May 27^th, 2013

Have you ever had your ultimate dream come true? I can honestly say it is an extraordinary thing.

I don’t know when my love of elephants started exactly, but I believe it was around 15 years ago while visiting a zoo in New Mexico and my 20 year old self buying a stuffed elephant in the zoo’s gift shop (his name is Elmer and he still sleeps on my bed to this day). At some point I fell head over heels in love with elephants, and my ultimate dream to spend quality time with them was born.

Three years ago I found a website for a program in Thailand that allowed people to work side by side with retired elephants. I, literally, spent the rest of the day reading through pages and pages of testimonials from people who spent time with the program, crying at my computer and already setting in motion how to make a trip to Thailand possible.

The program’s name is ElephantStay. It is run by two Aussie women at a working elephant village just outside of Ayutthaya.  The elephant village was created years ago to provide a safe and caring environment for elephants and their mahouts (caretakers), as well as a rehabilitation area for elephants that most other individuals would turn away, like those with dangerous temperaments. Michelle and Ewa were brought on board to create a program that would give people the opportunity to work up close with some of the retired elephants, a program that allows each person to look after and take care of an elephant just like the mahouts do. Sign me up!

Through my research, I learned that most elephants in Thailand are domesticated and have been for decades—and domesticated elephants cannot be released into the wild. Elephants are also incredibly expensive to take care of, so finding work for the elephants is crucial for the mahout and his family. The tourist trade is what keeps a lot of these elephants alive, but it’s very important to find companies who treat their elephants with the proper care and respect they deserve. After a week at the elephant village, I can rest assured that these elephants are well taken care of.

Well, on to the adventure! Here’s the account from our first day at ElephantStay.

We woke up early Monday morning in Bangkok, ready for our 7:30am pick-up, checked out of the True Siam and climbed into our driver’s van. We waved goodbye to Bangkok and said hello to the Thai country side. It took just over an hour to get to Ayutthaya, and then we were pulling in to the elephant village. Miriam had the video camera trained on me, ready for the tears that my audience was expecting, but none came because I was thinking about how the driver forgot to take us to a bank so we could get out additional funds to pay for our stay. We had to head back in to Ayutthaya and find an ATM.

Once we were back at the village, we were greeted by Katie and Paul, who help run the ElephantStay program, and were informed we had just missed a big ceremony where they were trimming the tusks of a huge bull elephant, aptly named Big. Monks, reporters and cameras and everything. And we missed it because we had to go to the ATM. Doh!

Our day to day schedule

Our elephants

We were shown to our little hut, simple but cute (and air conditioned! Phew!), and told to meet Katie back in the team hut in about 15 minutes for our welcome inductions. In the team hut we met Mackenzie and Emily from Canada and JT from Australia, the three ElephantStayers with whom we would be spending the week. All three had arrived the week prior, JT finishing out her 11 day stay and Mackenzie and Emily finishing their two week stay.

Our home away from home

Our private outdoor bathroom and shower 

Inside our private hut

The team hut, where all our meals took place

In my team tshirt 

Katie filled us in on safety procedures and what to expect from our stay. We then met Ewa, who explained a little more about the program, and Paul handed us our work shirts-- it was time to meet the elephants!

There are, literally, elephants everywhere the eye can see. The nursery was off to our left, where the older babies (over a year old) are kept in a paddock with their moms until they are done nursing.  Any babies small enough not to cause too much trouble should tourists come around, are allowed to run around outside the paddock. And, luckily for us, there was a two and a half month old baby girl by the name of Bumblebee! She is super cute but a big ol’ brat. We were warned that she likes to charge at people and try to knock them down and enjoys kicking and stealing things to stomp on them. Troublemaker. Even at two and a half months, she weighs a couple hundred pounds, so she packs a punch in her horseplay! But at the same time, she also loves sucking our thumbs and getting a good scratch.

Bumblebee sucking my thumb

Rasamee, Yitor, and Rumruay

All the ElephantStay ladies

The working elephants and the elephants who prefer not to work (the elephants aren’t forced to work if they don’t want to—all elephants are cared for, regardless) are kept off to the right. The ElephantStay ladies have a small paddock by the driveway, and the dangerous elephants are kept on a separate island at the back of the village, so as to give them much needed space.

Miriam and Jumpee

Tricia and Yitor

Miriam was paired up with Jumpee, a spirited girl who loves to play in the water. I was paired up with Yitor, a stubborn and sneaky girl, who was just like me! It was love at first sight. We also met the other ElephantStay eles: Rosukon (Mackenzie’s girl), Rumruay (Emily’s girl), Rasamee (JT’s girl), Pisamy, Gatin, Sinuwan, and Honey. It was feeding time!

First things first, we had to give the girls some water. Each elephant has their own way of drinking water from the hose. Yitor likes to have the water poured directly into her trunk so she can suck it up and spray it into her mouth; a couple of the other girls like to grab the hose and hold it right in their mouths. It was amusing to see each of their personalities come out simply in how they like to drink their water.

These ladies love pineapple plant leaves, and usually there’s a pineapple plant delivery every few days. The secret, we quickly learned, was to scour the new delivery for actual pineapples and save them as treats for our girls. No new delivery that day, but we did find some pineapples that had been missed in the previous delivery.

After the girls were watered and fed, we spent some time playing with the mischievous Bumblebee, and then it was time to ride! A part of our daily routine with our elephants was riding them mahout-style down to the river twice a day for a good walk and some play time in the water. I was both excited and scared. I’m afraid of heights, but I’ve always wanted to ride an elephant! We grabbed our packamaws—the bits of cloth we would use as seatbelts—wrapped them tightly around our waists and headed to the stairs to await our elephants.
The elephants came over one by one, led by their mahouts, and stopped by the stairs to allow for us to climb on to their necks. Paul and my mahout Ret were there to hang on to me as I apprehensively climbed on to Yitor’s neck. I was so nervous! Yitor’s gait rocked me from side to side, and I was afraid I would slip right off her neck, but Ret kept tight hold of my packamaw so that I wouldn’t fall. As a group, we walked down the road, through the village, and into the nearby river for some splashing around. I was much more confident with water all around, until I saw the giant elephant poo floating by! I wasn’t so willing to fall into the water with floaters!

Miriam with Peer on Jumpee

Tricia with Ret on Yitor

After a brief swim in the river, Miriam and I were pulled aside with our eles and taught a few basic commands that the other three ElephantStayers already knew.

Hua was the word for “go”, and saying that while tapping the back of their ears with our dangling feet tells them to start moving.

Ben was the word for “turn”—if we wanted them to turn right, we would say this and tap the back of their left ear, basically turning their head in the direction we want them to go.

How was the word for “stop”—important word to know! We would say this while squeezing our knees and feet into their necks.

Toi was the word for “back up” which allowed us to get them to back up while rocking our hips forward and backwards.

Erre was the word for praise. A good pat on the head while growling errrrrrrre lets them know that they are doing a good job.

They taught us these phrases and then let us try them out on our eles. Once we got some practice in, we all set off back to the paddock.

Lunch time! Something I was looking forward to almost as much as meeting the elephants was the week of homemade Thai food! Thai food is my favorite ethnic food, and I had read amazing testimonials about the ElephantStay food that had me drooling. And the first meal did not disappoint. Fried rice with fried eggs and fresh vegetables. So good! It was made even better with a visit from the ice cream man, too.

A man drove up with his scooter and an attached freezer full of fun ice cream while we were eating our meal. Mackenzie excitedly told us that the ice cream man comes every day around lunch so that we can buy some desserts from him—which was perfect, since it was well into the 90s F (30s C).

We had a little free time after lunch, so Miriam and I went to look around (and maybe play with Bumblebee a little…and take a ton of photos…). We also purchased some tank tops to change into, it being too hot for tshirts. It was then time to give some of the eles a good scrub!

First up was Miriam’s Jumpee. She was brought over to the scrubbing area, where Miriam got the honor of hosing her down. Then we all moved in with our scrub brushes and got to work. Eventually it became a water fight between whoever had the hose and the rest of us. It was a lot of fun. And, hey, we didn’t mind—did I mention it was hot? Because it was. Hot. After Jumpee was scrubbed clean, Rasamee moved in and we all got busy scrubbing her clean. Where Jumpee wouldn’t stop moving around (she lives up to her name), Rasamee was incredibly calm and enjoyed her bath.

We had a little more free time after the scrubbing to play around and take photos, and then we were feeding our girls and preparing for our afternoon ride. This time, we were sent out to the yard to practice the commands we learned before taking our full walk to the river.

After the fun playtime in the river, it was time to put the girls in their night spots. Every evening the elephants are sent out to the pasture and chained up in individual night spots, with enough chain to allow them to walk around, grab their piles of food, and yet not be able to bother each other (some of them can get a bit testy if someone else creeps in their space). We said goodnight to our ladies and then headed back to the team hut. Time to shower off all the sweat and grime and spend the evening getting to know my fellow ElephantStayers!

If every day was going to be like the first, I knew I was going to have a blast. And I couldn’t wait.