C & C globetrotting around the world…

We took a one-day Elephant Mahout Training at the Baanchang Elephant Park and learnt how to ride an elephant. A Mahout is a person who drives the elephant. Usually, a mahout starts as a boy in the ‘family business’ when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other throughout the elephant’s life. Asian elephants are smaller than their African cousins, but still enormous creatures, weighing about 2-3 tons each. They live about as long as humans, between 60 and 75 years. The Asian elephants also have 2 hemispherical bulges on their heads, unlike the African elephants. Elephants are very intelligent animals and have been used by humans in Asia for a long time for labour, such as logging and milling. Because of destruction of natural habitat (the jungle), poaching, live capture and conflict with humans living on the edge of protected areas, the Asia elephants have become an endangered species. There are an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 still in the wild and another 2,000 in conservation camps and elephant parks. The “domestic” elephants have been used for domestic labour, ceremonial rituals and tourism.

To familiarize ourselves with the elephants, we were shown how to feed them. We gave them bananas and sugar cane, which are only snacks for them. They usually feed on grass and leaves, about 200kg of them. When you feed an elephant, you can give it the food directly in its mouth, but it is easier (and safer) to hand it from a distance where it can grab it with its trunk. We also learnt that when petting them, it is best not to touch the tip of the trunk, where they are the most sensitive, but rather pet the head. The trunk is a very complex organ composed of more than 60,000 muscles. Elephants use their trunks for breathing, watering, feeding, touching, dusting, sound production and communication, washing, pinching, grasping, defence and offence.

Next we learnt simple commands to ride the elephants bare-back. The first one was “Non Long” to get the giant to kneel down. Once he kneels, you grab one ear, step on its bent leg and swing your leg over its back. Then you quickly grab the other ear too and hold on tight, since the elephant will immediately stand up. You then slide forward on its neck and try to find a comfortable spot while holding onto its head (not the ears anymore). When you want to get off, you grab the ears and shout “Non Long”, until the elephant kneels down. Still holding the ears, you swing your leg over and slowly slide down its side. We got to practice it on 2 different elephants and although it’s freaky at first, you eventually get the hang of it.

The next step was to learn the basic commands to turn and stop once you’re on the elephant. To turn right, you squeeze your right thigh a bit and kick the elephant’s ear with your left foot while shouting “Gue”, meaning “this way”. You do the opposite to turn left, of course. In order to get the elephant to stop, you shout “How”. It sounds very easy, but we were happy the mahouts were there with us, as we were not very confident about our steering skills. The elephants were also well-behaved and had done this a million times before, which was reassuring. We tried this in a circle, again with 2 different elephants. While riding Cecilia accidentally dropped her flip-flop, but the elephant was so smart that she picked it up. Cecilia was worried that the elephant might eat it, but instead she handed it back to Cecilia. How cool is that! We even have a video of it, but unfortunately we cannot post it on the blog.

We had lunch and then set out to ride them through the jungle. We shared an elephant, as it would have been way to expensive for each of us to have our own. First Cecilia rode on the neck and Christoph sat in the back. It was very exciting and we were hoping not to fall off. Riding up- and downhill is not very easy, but we managed. Riding in the front is more comfortable, so we took a break half-way before switching. During the break our guide told us more about elephants. There were 2 baby elephants in this park. One was 5-years old and could already be ridden, the other one was only 2 years old and still too young. A female only gets a few babies during her lifetime, one at a time. She carries a baby for about 22 months in her womb. The calf is fully developed by the 19^th month, but stays in the womb to grow so it can reach its mother to feed. At birth it weighs about 100kg and is suckled for 2-3 years. Once a female gives birth, she usually does not breed again until the first calf is weaned, resulting in a 4–5-year birth interval.

We then rode some more through the jungle, but it’s very tiring, so we were happy that we only took a one-day course. We had left our flip-flops at the base, but at some point we dropped our water bottle. The elephant picked it up again. We guess they mahouts have trained them well to do this. At the end of the jungle ride we took the elephants to bathe. Since their skin is so thick, elephants have to bathe 3 times a day. The mahouts took them into the pond and we were given a bucket and brushes. Our elephant knew the drill and lied down in the murky water for us to scrub her. Others were more playful, especially the young one, spraying water at us. Overall we had a great time and enjoyed getting close to this fascinating giants.