7/1/2005: Mahout training holiday

[Undertoad]

One of our own Cellarites has been on a marvelous adventure. She tells the tale nicely, here it is:

Leah writes:
The photos that have been sent were taken at The Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang just south of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
www.changthai.com

I trained to be a Mahout (elephant handler). The course can take from 3 days to one week. You stay in the local village in a Home Stay hut. It's very comfortable and clean. The training Mahouts help prepare the evening meals with the locals, this includes cleaning, pealing & cutting of vegies and meats. It's a bonding session really, loads of fun.

Each day we got up at 6am, got dressed in our mahout suites and walked for about 45 minutes into the jungles to collect our elephants. They are taken into the jungles to eat and sleep. When we find our elephant we then ride it back down the mountain. At the bottom there is a river/pond. We wash our elephant and have a swim with them. They love this. We then rode the elephant back into the camp. We then went back to our huts to have some well deserved breakfast and a hot coffee. We then watched the elephants prepare for the morning show for the tourists. After the show we trained until the afternoon show. At the end of the day we would take our elephants for another swim before walking them back into the jungle for the night.

I recommend this to anyone who loves not only elephants but animals. To get this close and train with them is an experience I will never forget. I will be returning next year just to be with them again.

The Mahout teachers us to control our elephant with commands. Some of the commands are:

Lift elephants leg to get on: Song Soong
Lift leg up high to get off: Hab Soong
Go (nudge ears forward): Pai
Slow down (squeeze tight around the neck): How
Turn (nudging the opposite ear to where you want to go): Bane
Walk backwards (push your weight back onto elephant) Sok
Bow Head (to get on and off): Tag Long
Lie down on belly: Map Long
Sit down: Nung Long
Lie down on side: Non Dee
Drink water: Bong
Thai greeting to elephant: Sawasdee
Hold trunk up: Bon Soong

At the end of all our training we participate in the Elephant Show for tourists to watch.

I can honestly say that this was one of the best holidays I've ever had. After the three days at the Elephant Conservation Centre I then spent a week at the Elephant Nature Park, North of Chiang Mai. The Elephant Nature Park looks after sick, abused and injured elephants.

http://thaifocus.com/elephant/

The park tries to raise money to buy them from camps who do not treat them well. They have several elephants who were very sick when they arrived but now lead a happy life away from tourist camps. One particular elephant is blind. She was owned by two owners, who took it in turn working her 24 hours a day. There are some very sad stories with most of the elephants rescued at this park.