ELEPHANTSTAY AKA MY HEAVEN ON EARTH

It’s been a few months now since I’ve been at ElephantStay (yes, I’m behind in my blogging…I know…), but every time I see a picture of me with one of the eles I can still feel their leathery skin and prickly hair under my fingers. It’s a memory to last a lifetime.

My week at ElephantStay was beyond my expectations, from start to finish.

For the most part, the routine is the same from day to day. Why? Because that’s what the elephants expect. But I had absolutely no problem with that. And, there were plenty of fun surprises throughout the week to keep us on our toes and my camera at the ready.

Here are the highlights from our week at my own little elephant paradise:

Our breakfast view

WORKING HARD FOR THE MONEY

Every morning started at 6:30am. The alarm would go off and we’d be up and grabbing breakfast by 7am, watching elephants head down to the river or into town for work as we ate our toast. Not a bad view. At 7:30 am we were grabbing the rakes, hoes, brooms, and tarps, and making our way to the elephants’ paddock. Time to clean! Lots of raking and hoeing of elephant poop and left over food. It was a hot and sweaty labor of love. Once everything was scrubbed clean, we moved our ladies from their night spots into the shade of the paddock, cleaned up their night spots, and then gave the girls breakfast.

Miriam with Jumpee

Throughout the day we’d have various tasks: from scrubbing eles, giving baths to the baby, hauling food, and shoveling poo, to riding them around the yard, practicing our commands, and taking them for a swim. It was a decent day’s work, and we’d always work up a sweat, especially since the temps were always in the high 90’s (high 30’s for everyone outside the US).

The days had a set routine to them, simply because that’s what animals expect (why is the family dog always waking you up at 6:30am on a Saturday? Because that’s when he always gets up), but they were what I called a fluid routine. One day a big melon delivery would arrive or the pineapple plants were delivered, and suddenly we’d have new tasks to do. Yes, we would feed, water, and ride them at the same time, but every day something would happen that would create a little change to the everyday routine.  One day the little two-and-a-half month old baby elephant broke the plumbing that supplied water to one part of the village, which meant we got to walk all the girls down to the river for them to drink and swim. It ended up being an entertaining change of pace, watching the elephants swimming as we sat on shore. 

Twice a day we would ride our eles down to the river, taking various paths to do so. We would usually start out in the large yard, walking the eles around and practicing our commands for a while, and then we would head down one of three paths. We would go through the village, to the statues, or to the white walls, all three leading eventually to the river, where we would have a fun swim with our girls and water fights with the mahouts. 

Miriam finding a pineapple amidst the pineapple plants

Our activities ranged from scrubbing the bigger elephants (and having a water fight with the fellow Stayers) to giving the baby a bath (so adorable), and sometimes we’d walk down to the river to watch some of the elephants take a much-needed swim. The best were when they went in the water sans mahout. They could just be elephants and play and soak in the water without worrying about anyone riding them. It was incredibly entertaining watching the struggle the mahouts had trying to convince the eles to come out of the water, while they stood on the shore. The mahouts would stand at the water’s edge and yell, “Maw!” repeatedly, which meant “come”. Those elephants wouldn’t budge. They came out when they were good and ready.

We were particular fans of Jumpee going in the water on her own. Jumpee, Miriam’s ele, LOVES the water. She thrashes around and splashes and makes a big to-do whenever she’s in the water. On our last day, Jumpee and a gentle bull by the name of Yodyim got to go in on their own and have at it. Both of them were such fun to watch from shore.

Going for a swim with our girls

Miriam trying to stay put!

She stayed on! Victory!

The girls in their day spot

Yodyim

Jumpee having fun in the water

PEOPLE. PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE

I think a big part in our extraordinary time at ElephantStay (other than the elephants, of course) were the people we were with. We could not have been grouped with a better set of people. 

Paul, Katie, Neil, Michelle, & Ewa

To start, there’s the staff. Ewa and Michelle have put together an amazing experience that educated us about the lives of domestic elephants in Thailand. And not only that, they are fun and funny women who we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know. Paul is a witty, ol’ coot who kept cracking us up with his one-liners that you had to pay special attention to in order to catch them. The love Neil has for all the eles was evident the moment we met him-- he was on holiday for most of our stay, but he figured all us crazy people out rather quickly. And then there was our kindred spirit, Katie, the most recent long-term volunteer. Miriam and I became fast friends with Katie, partially because we were all around the same age, but most definitely because we all had the same biting sense of humor and we could crack each other up on a whim.

Then there were our fellow Stayers. When we first arrived, we met JT from Australia and Emily and Mackenzie from Canada, eh. Emily and Mackenzie were on their second week of a two week stint, and JT was on her last week of an 11 day stay. We would all be spending the week together and leaving on the same day. It was great having them there to guide us on our first few days, since they knew the routine. What was even better was that all three of them were great people! We all got along so well. 

Our elephant pancakes

Pineapple hunters

One night, mid-week, we all took a tuk-tuk into town with Katie and wandered around the local’s Night Market before heading over to the bar street to grab a drink. At the Night Market I purchased some fun nail polish, JT picked up a few bootleg DVDs (we crossed our fingers they would all work), and Katie and Miriam scored a great deal on some tank tops. I had to get a Thai milk tea, since it’s my favorite, and Mackenzie and Miriam had fun getting sodas in bags. Katie then introduced us to the pancake lady, who makes pancakes in fun shapes and puts them on sticks. We asked for a few elephants and then she made a really cool dragon and some sort of anime character (or so we think). After our walk through the Night Market we grabbed a tuk-tuk to the bar street and grabbed a drink at Street Lamp. We sat outside and enjoyed the live music, which consisted of a guy playing guitar and singing American and British classic rock songs...in a Thai accent...It was amusing and fun. 

The gang with our pancakes 

Fun in the back of the tuk-tuk

Mid-week we had three single people join us, each staying for three days. Dea was from Australia, and Vicky and George were both from the UK. It was fun not being the newbies anymore and being able to show other people the ropes, and it was interesting to see how the dynamic changed with three new people in our midst. We had lots of entertaining chats about our cultures and language nuances. It’s quite amusing to note the differences in word choices and slang between the US, the UK, and Australia.

The full gang after scrubbing Soi

The three-day Stayers left Saturday afternoon, setting us back to the original dream team, and that night, our last night at ElephantStay, we decided to have some fun. We all ordered up the infamous White Elephant cocktail we had all heard so much about, and then we played a rousing game of UNO that went late into the evening. I don’t even remember who won, but I do know Ewa lost (right, Ewa?). :) 
And don’t forget the mahouts! They don’t speak much English, but that didn’t stop them from having a lot of fun with us. Throughout the week, Miriam had both Peer and Dee as her mahouts, and both were determined to get Jumpee to buck her off in the water. After a while, Dee gave up, told Miriam to stand up on Jumpee’s back for a photo and then pushed her in the river. It was hilarious! Miriam made sure my mahout, Ret, did the same to me the following ride-- quite refreshing on a hot day to jump in that river! Miriam also made it her mission to push Dee in the river-- payback. It became a battle between the two of them throughout the rest of the week, with both of them falling in the river on numerous occasions. 

Dee, a mahout

One day before our ride, the head mahout Gik went after Peer, all in fun, after he did something he wasn’t supposed to, and one of the most epic chases ensued. We watched Peer running all around the large yard and pasture with Gik hiding in various spots in the hopes of catching him off guard. The chase led to the backs of the elephants, where they jumped from elephant back to elephant back and climbed up and down the platform we used to get on and off the elephants. Eventually, Peer was caught, and Gik gave him the old ruler-to-the-palm-of-the-hand treatment.

Gik was in a feisty and fun mood that day because when we eventually got in the water with the eles, she started an elephant poop fight with the other mahouts, picking up the floaters and tossing them at her friends. I decided against throwing myself off Yitor’s back for a cool-off that day!

Having the right people to share your experience with you is so important. Each person was so great, and I feel we connected on so many levels. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. We were really lucky to get such like-minded, hard-working, fun individuals to spend our time with.

Saying goodbye to our girls after our last ride

LET’S TALK FOOD

Thai food happens to be one of my favorite foods, and there is nothing better than getting fresh, home-cooked Thai food every day. ElephantStay is staffed with the most amazing cook, who would go to the market every morning and get fresh ingredients for the day’s meal, offering a few different dishes for our meals throughout the day. Every dish was absolutely outstanding. And after putting in a full day’s work, we had no qualms about eating our fill.

Rumor has it that an ElephantStay cookbook is in the works. Put me on the pre-order list!

Oh, and let’s not forget about the ice cream man! Every day around noon, the ice cream man would come on his motorscooter with his ice cream cooler sidecar, providing us with dessert after our lunch. It’s the little things that got us excited, and hearing his motor coming up the drive had us behaving like little kids. One day it was too hot for him to make the trip, and we were all so sad! By the end of the week we had learned to buy two treats from him and store the second in the freezer for a cool treat after dinner.

See ya, ice cream man!

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND: TIPS FROM THE INSIDE

Has all my rambling convinced you that you need to take a trip to experience this all for yourself? Here are some tips from someone who has been through it:

Prepare to live in your swimsuit (or bathers, as my new Aussie and British friends call them). After reading all the testimonials and seeing a picture of the daily schedule, Miriam and I prepared to wear bikinis under our clothes the entire time we were there-- definitely a good idea (and, word to the wise, ladies, make those two-piece swimsuits. Nothing worse than having to go to the bathroom and having to take all your clothes off because you’re wearing a one piece, am I right?) There are opportunities to get wet just giving water to the elephants in the morning, and then you ride them into the river twice a day, scrub and bathe them, and give them water again. I recommend fast drying clothes, too. There’s nothing worse than the feeling of wet underwear, so I was thankful to have a swimsuit on that dried fairly quickly. They offered a laundry service, but I brought my own travel detergent and washed our clothes out each night in our bathroom sink.

Also bring shoes or sandals that can easily be slipped on and off. We rode the elephants barefoot so we often needed to kick off our sandals. The living quarters follow the traditional Thai practice of taking off your shoes before entering, so if you go in and out of your hut like we did, taking off laced up or Velcro’d shoes or sandales every time could get tiring.

Our hut

The team hut

The accommodations are simple but nice. Don’t expect the lap of luxury but don’t think you are going all rustic either. We had our own private hut with two twin cots. The room had a good air conditioner, a clothes rack, and a small vanity. We also had our own private, outdoor bathroom and shower attached to our hut. Again, the huts follow the traditional Thai teak house format with a raised hut and a bathroom on the ground level outside the living area. It was a simple walk down the stairs, but should you not want to risk having someone in the nearby village see you wrapped up in your towel, I suggest bringing something easy to throw on before and after your shower, as the hot, humid weather can make it difficult to get your clothes on right after your shower. 

The outlets fit both European and US plugs

Bring extra money. While your meals and water, tea, and coffee are covered, there are opportunities for extras. They offer sodas, beer, and alcoholic beverages for an additional fee. And if they don’t have what you want, there are two little stores just down the road in the village.

While we had plenty of treats to give our elephants every day, sometimes Miriam and I wanted to spoil them a little more when putting them to bed. The kraal is visited by a lot of tourists, and there is no way to charge any sort of admission, so they offer baskets of food for a minimal fee, and the tourists can buy it to feed the elephants. A number of times throughout the week, Miriam would run and purchase two baskets of food so that we could give our girls extra treats before bed. It’s easy to want to spoil them.

They also have a gift shop! And the proceeds go to the elephants, so it was easy for me to spend my money there. Most of the souvenir money I spent on my trip to Thailand was at ElephantStay, buying elephant-painted tote bags, elephant figurines, purses, paintings, magnets, bookmarks, extra ElephantStay Team tank tops, etc. 

A word on elephant painting-- there are a lot of controversial training practices with elephants painting. Many elephant camps use forms of torture and stabbing to teach the elephants how to paint. I’ve watched the videos of some of the training techniques and it’s quite hard to watch. The elephant kraal, thankfully, does not employ these training techniques, as far as I know. Elephants are only taught to paint if they want to learn and are never forced to paint. It comes down to the bond between the elephant and his mahout. The most popular painter in the kraal is Peter. Peter loves to paint, loves to perform, and loves to be the center of attention. We bought a few of his pieces of work and love them.

Bring your camera. Seriously. And bring it with you everywhere. If you have a waterproof camera, even better. Dea was able to get some fun shots of all of us in the water on our elephants with her waterproof camera. The crew was also always willing to take our cameras and take photos of us from the shore, which turned out really nice as well. We came with my big DSLR camera, a video camera, and a GoPro video camera, complete with the waterproof case and the head strap, which made for some fun video scrubbing the elephants and riding them into the river. I ended up taking over 3,000 photos during our week long stay and over 30GB of video. Granted, I’m a semi-professional photographer, but still, my fellow ElephantStayers were taking plenty of photos themselves.

Photo getting a boost from Mom

Something else to keep in mind: the elephants are chained up throughout the day when they aren’t going on their walks and the mahouts do use a takaw or a bull hook. I was worried beforehand that this would bother me so much that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself, but, while in a perfect world I would love to see them unchained, I understood the purpose once I was there. The kraal is home to around 100 elephants. The area is not enclosed, meaning that if the elephants weren’t chained, they could wander into the village or onto the road and get hurt or do damage to the villagers’ property. One day I would love to see all elephants everywhere free from the chain, but I have a feeling that’s a long way off. Until then, I’ll settled for humans treating them with the proper respect they deserve, which I witnessed every day at the kraal. The most important thing we learned is that if the elephants don’t want to be chained, they’ll figure out how to take the chain off. It happened twice while we were there. My girl Yitor and an elephant by the name of Natalie both got out on two of the hotter days. Both had the same idea-- head to the bathing area for some water. They both got their water and then were escorted back to their paddocks, where they remained without any complaints. 

We also discovered that the paddocks could easily be climbed out of, if the elephants decided to do that. One particular nursery baby by the name of Photo was notorious for climbing in and out of the paddock, getting in trouble from his mother and Bumblebee’s mother in the process. They usually had to help him climb back in to his pen, too. One day he decided to join Bumblebee while we gave her a bath and proceeded to climb in and out of his pen about ten times before Nook, the nursery mahout made sure he stayed in his pen.

The takaw is used to guide the elephants. It’s a decent tool when used properly but can also cause great damage in the wrong hands. Again, I’ve seen horrible videos of mahouts in other elephant camps who use the takaws so severely that the elephants are left bleeding, broken, and scarred. ElephantStay prides themselves on treating their elephants properly, and if we ever had any complaints or concerns about how a mahout was treating the elephants, we only had to mention it to the staff to get the mahout reprimanded and pulled off the rotation. Luckily, we never had to make any complaints.

Come with a big appetite. The staff makes sure to take all dietary restrictions into account and will work their best to make sure the guests have plenty of food. Miriam and I don’t eat seafood, and there were plenty of dishes offered up every day without seafood.

Make sure to apply bug spray and sunscreen. We were out in the sun for most of the day, so sunscreen and hats were very important. Don’t worry if you forget your own-- ElephantStay has good bug spray and sunscreen for use, should you need it. If you have wimpy hands like I do, you may also benefit to bringing a pair of work gloves. My first morning cleaning out the paddocks and night spots led to an open blister (see? wimpy).

Be willing to work and have fun, and you will have an unbelievably rewarding experience.

MEET THE ZOO

The elephant kraal is home to around 100 elephants, but a variety of other creatures also call it home. Our first encounter was with the little lizards. They were everywhere-- crawling on walls and ceilings and sunbathing on our clothes that we left out to dry. Their presence was most noticeable at night, when they came out to hunt for bugs. 

Munchie

CiCi

The kraal and the village are home to many dogs, be they strays or pets, but we were only friendly with three of them. Buddy is Ewa and Michelle’s dog from Australia, and his Thai girlfriend was Little Girl (we got news recently that Little Girl passed away. Rest in gentle peace, Little Girl.). They also had a pregnant friend name Coconut, who would occasionally come and visit us by the team hut.

There were also plenty of cats creeping and stalking around the kraal. The most surprising was seeing a sleek, white cat crawling along the ledge of our bathroom wall when I made a visit in the middle of the night. Not quite expecting that! The ElephantStay cats are Munchie and CiCi, Munchie being an orange tabby, much like my Tucker back at home, and CiCi being a tortoiseshell, like my cat Emy, so they were great for filling my kitty void. 

Boonlua

Beautiful Little Girl

Ewa and Michelle also took in a crippled monkey by the name of Boonlua. He had been attacked at one point and both legs and one arm had been ripped off. When he was found he was delivered to Ewa and Michelle, in the hopes they could help him. He now lives happily in a cage by the huts with his pet guinea pig and pet bunny. 

Along with our ElephantStay girls, who I introduced in the last post, there were a few other characters we fell in love with during the week. The first being Bumblebee, the two and a half month old baby elephant. She was a troublemaker and a brat but was the cutest thing ever. Being as young as she is, she is allowed to wander around the kraal and doesn’t need to be penned up. The other young ones are penned up because they are too young to know their own strength and are at a size where they could possibly hurt someone. They stay with their mothers in the nursery until mama and baby decide they are done nursing. The little guy named Photo, though, never let the paddock railing hold him back, as I mentioned.

Giving Bumblebee a bath

We constantly had to keep an eye out for Bumblebee, as one of her favorite things to do was charge at people and try to knock them down. She also liked to grab hold of things and stomp on them, so cameras, sunglasses, and anything else in our pockets had to be moved out of reach. While trying to wrestle with us, she would also grab a hold of our hands with her trunk and suck our thumbs. Pretty darn cute, and how can you say no to that? She would come running, excitedly, whenever we pulled out her pool for bath time, and let me tell you, bathing a baby elephant is one of the cutest things I have ever experienced.

I also took advantage of my time with Bumblebee to live up to the name of my blog: Singing With Elephants. At one point she came running over to me and I started singing “Baby Mine” from Dumbo. As soon as I finished the song she ran back to her mom and crawled into the hay for a nap. It melted my heart.

Getting a kiss from Soi

And then there was Soi. Soi is Michelle and Ewa’s five year old “daughter”. She is a huge ham. She loves attention, performing, dancing, and giving kisses. Her night spot happens to be right outside all our huts, so every morning we’d awaken to her grumblings and trumpetings. We’d eat breakfast with her right next to us, providing the cutest view.

We got to give Soi a good scrub twice over the course of the week, which was absolutely adorable. She would lie down on her side and let us go at her with our scrub brushes. Then she’d get up and give us a show, shaking her bootie and dancing for us if we’d sing “Dancing Queen,” her favorite song.

At one point, after one of her scrubs, she reached over to me with her trunk and planted an unexpected kiss on my cheek. It was the cutest thing! Her little trunk came reaching, got to my cheek, and then she sucked in-- almost like she was going to give me a hickey. It had me laughing hysterically.

We even had the pleasure of walking her down to the river with Rasamee and watching her play in the water a few times. Too cute. Soi is too little to go in the water by herself, so she’s chained to another adult elephant while she plays. Rasamee was the only lady calm enough to handle the crazy antics of a toddler, so that sweet lady has the chore of playing babysitter. Soi and Rasamee both had fun, especially when they got to come up to the shore and spray us all with water.

And, finally, Peter. I was a big fan of Peter well before I ventured to ElephantStay. I had seen numerous videos of him playing with tablets (iPads, Samsung Notes, etc), musical instruments, and paintings, and had read the stories of how much he loved to be the center of attention. I had to meet Peter. 

Peter!

Usually, Peter is at the kraal a few days a week, painting and relaxing, but with one of the young bulls out of commission for the work week, Peter was needed in town. I asked about him every day, and finally I asked at the right time. Right as I mentioned his name, Michelle looked up and said, “There’s Peter right there!” He was just coming home from work. Katie ran over and got him to stop and take photos with us, including me getting a big wet, sloppy kiss on my face (much bigger than Soi’s trunk kiss!) and him getting a bit randy with Miriam when he got to second base with her. Too funny!

He and his mahout then came back around to our team hut, where Emily, Mackenzie, and JT got to have some fun with him, too. We whipped out an iPad and had him play the piano app on it—he was getting so excited about it he started giving the iPad kisses. Again, too funny. It was like meeting a celebrity, the way we all got so excited!

Elephant butts

After all of that, would I go back to ElephantStay? In a heartbeat. If I weren’t planning a wedding, I’d be there next year. My ultimate dream of working up close and personal with elephants came true, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

My stay at ElephantStay was above and beyond what I expected. I got to sing with elephants. What could be better than that?