How many Kronards can an elephant dump?
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2008
1
46
116
Trip End
Aug 01, 2009
Chaing Mai,
Thailand
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Elephants in Chiang Mai....
We were picked up at our guest house at 8:30 in the morning and then wound around the convoluted streets of the city of 250,000 to pick up other travellers who were all headed an hour outside the city for our day with some Asian elephants on a "Mahout Training Course". A Mahout is an elephant trainer.
We had celebrated the coming of the new year last night, and the very loud fireworks didn't die down until about 1am, at least that is the last time that I remember on my watch. We had actually hit the hay earlier in the evening reasoning that if we were going to remember the commands for controlling our elephant the next day, we'd better get a good sleep. The norm is to have a mini-van pick us up, and I was looking forward to sleeping on the way there. We were however greeted with a ¼ tonne truck with two bench seats on either side. These are what Thailand uses for taxis, called a Sawngthaew and they can comfortably seat 8 adults. We were 11 people on this trip, and I was thankful that we all could squish our bottoms onto the seats as I recalled the three Italian guys who rode standing on the tail gate for the 30 minute ride to the ferry on Koh Chang!
The other people in the group were a young Turkish couple from London, England, a couple from Quebec, and older couple from Manchester, England, and an older couple from the Netherlands. After greetings and sharing travel destinations the conversation turned to our world trip and how it is of such a benefit to the kids. The others were very impressed with the whole thing and praised us for undertaking this adventure.
We had to pick up bananas for the elephants at the market. We were told that they don't like the local, wild bananas, they are too sour and elephants like sweet things. We also picked up a bag of sugar cane. We had 5 bags of bananas, weighing about 15 kilo's each. When we arrived at the elephant center we were given outfits to wear and had a session with a trainer where we learned the commands to control the elephants. After the classroom session we had to feed the animals before riding them so they can get to know us. Our first clumsy attempts to give the bananas too the huge beasts was comical. Most everyone was afraid of being eaten along with the fruit! The Mahout would command the elephant to put their trunks way up in the air, exposing a huge mouth into which we would place the food. I found it interesting that when the elephant has her trunk up like this, her lower cheeks cover up her lower teeth and most of her tongue by folding together in the centre of the mouth, so that all you really see is a small triangle of pink tongue up at the top of the mouth. The mahout commanded her to open wider and allowed us to see her huge grinding molars that were some 6 cm wide and perhaps 2.5 cm deep.
Feeding the elephants went on for half an hour and we became skilled at this job. The neat part was when she (all the elephants were females) would take the food with her trunk, the trunk felt much like a hand in the way that she was able to grab and hold onto things. With feeding time completed, the Mahout brought out one large female and we all took turns getting on and moving her forward, backward, and turning left and right. We learned the Thai commands for these exercises, as we were told "these are Thai elephants and they only speak Thai, not English!"
Stop = hud!
Forward = Bye
Turn right = Qhua
Turn left = siee
Back up = toi
Slowly = bow
The commands are repeated over and over as the elephant moves around and we also used a 50 cm stick with a hook on the end to aid in the verbal commands. The hook is placed (gently) on the forehead for stop, lower down on the forehead for backup (while we leaned back), on the top part of the right ear to turn left, and the top part of the left ear to turn right. To go forward the stick is laid down on the head and is not used. Each command to move is accompanied by a sort of kicking of the feet, swinging them between the neck and the ears similar to the leg action when riding a horse. There are two commands to ask the elephant to assist you to mount. The first one is "Yocha" which means to lift the leg for you to step onto. The next command is "sooo" and means to lift the leg higher, and the rest is up to the rider to grab onto the ear and climb aboard. It is no small feat to climb onto the neck (this is where you sit) of an elephant! Even with the assistance of "yocha" and "sooo" you are still a long way from the top. The asian elephant weighs between 4,500 and 5,500Kg whereas the big eared African elephant weighs between 5,500 and 6,500Kg. Once we all had our turn and we listened to each other give the commands over and over again, they started to be commited to memory. It was time for the humans to have a lunch of rice, fish, soup and mixed vegetables.
When we rejoined the elephants it was somehow surprising to see the Mahouts unchaining their legs. Females are kept in the yard by chaining one leg to an anchor in the ground, whereas the more aggressive males have to be chained by both front legs. The animals were now free and under the control of their own mahout, and we all gradually mounted our animals, two people per elephant. Becca and I shared a medium sized 20 year old female named Pilean, while Simon had his very own baby, a seven year old Nong-mai. Nong-mai looked very much like a baby, but she was a very well trained animal who gave everyone hugs and kisses with her trunk! It was goofy the crazy touristy things that the mahouts had trained the elephants to do for the pleasure of the people that come to experience the Asian elephant. I was looking for evidence of animals that are well taken care of. The Mahouts told us that some of the animals are too skinny because they came to them from a different place, and weren't given enough food. There was one which looked to me as though she was either stressed or extremely bored because she was moving around within the confines of her chain a lot, very antsy. I didn't go near her at all. It was easy to tell that the gentle methods now used by a lot of horse people in the west has not yet been adopted here. I have no knowledge of elephant training, but I could see the fear in the elephants eyes as the Mahout swung his stick around while explaining this or that and the elephant would blink as though she was about to be hit. Indeed later we saw a young bull who had bloody holes in his upper head from being hit by the training stick/hook. One can only hope that the 'whispering training methods' now being used in many countries will someday be adopted here.
We rode through the forest for about a half hour at which point we got off to climb up to a look out for a view of the area, and for the elephants to have a snack of banana tree. The mahout had a machete with which he chopped down a 25cm wide plant and cut it up into sections for the girls to eat. It was very nice to watch them use their short tusk to peel away the layers while holding it in their trunk. Becca and I then traded spots, so that I was now the passenger, sitting on the top of Pilean and holding onto a rope that was placed around her middle. She also had a straw mat on her back because her spine would have been very uncomfortable to ride upon. We rode back to the chaining area for another snack and then to the water hole where we bathed the animals. I was surprised too see the mahouts commanding the elephants to lay down in the water. We had brushes and after we cleaned them they rewarded us with a shower as well. Over and over again the elephants blasted us with water from their trunks! When humans and elephants were in an all out splash war, Pilean and Nong-mai were trumpeting and making rumbling noises.
The humans were happy to get out of the dirty water (2 elephants pooped in the water), and get up to the bucket where we could rinse off and get changed back into our clothes. I noticed that once the humans were out, the elephants also made a bee-line out of the water as well. They were chained up in this area where there was a tall roof for shelter to eat for the rest of the day.
