boltsintotheblue   Le mariage and beyond

My jaw literally hit the floor when we turned up to “Elephant Village” about 15km outside Luang Prabang in Laos. There they were, right there, totally accessible, not behind bars or to be viewed from afar using binoculars – right there! We were both giggling like school girls as we approached (Clive especially).

The site of the Elephant Village was astounding in itself. Set high on an hill above the Mekong, ringed with what seemed to be layer after layer of mountains in the distance, almost like stage props that had been wheeled in and overlapped to give an impression of depth.

We started off with a simple elephant ride which was basically designed to get us on the beast and encouraging it to move the way that we wanted it to move. At all times you’re accompanied by a Mahout, an experienced elephant handler, but it’s still a long way up as demonstrated when I tried to get on. The elephant bends its front leg on a certain command which is supposed to give you the step up to swing your leg over its back – not so when you’re only 5’3″ and your elephant is a little half arsed in how much they want to help you out. In the end I was unceremoniously shoved up there from below by two hands on my butt from our guide – so elegant.

Being up on the elephants neck was just amazing. They have incredibly coarse hair on their heads which could honestly use some conditioner and while their hides are tough, the skin behind their ears is really quite soft. When they move they are obviously incredibly deliberate and surprisingly sure footed considering they can’t actually see the ground directly in front of them. This little fact made me all the more anxious when we had to access the river by a very narrow steep path that had a number of us with our eyes closed as we anticipated the tumble down the slope. Thankfully the elephants seem to know what they’re doing and even managed to turn at 90 degrees to the narrow path when a particular tree caught their fancy and they decided to stop for a bite, reaching in with their trunks and wrenching out enormous amounts of foliage. At these points no matter what the Mahout did the elephant would finish its snack before continuing and to be honest I got the impression that the elephants were indulging the Mahouts rather than taking orders from them.

As part of the trip we went on an hour’s ride down the river where we sat on wooden seats that were attached to their backs, rather like the old colonial explorers, though we really were missing our all white explorers outfit and domed helmet. The pace of the trip was very sedate and we had plenty of time to take turns on the neck of the elephant and have about a million pictures so beware of the picture show when we get back!

The highlight of the day was definitely getting to bathe them in the river. This involved another trip down the vertigo inducing path, except this time on the neck of the elephant – I may have closed my eyes at one point, before we head straight into the river and the Mahout gets the elephant to sit down so that we can splash water over their heads and give them a good scrub. I absolutely loved this part particularly because I had a feisty specimen who seemed to take umbrage at whatever the Mahout wanted her to do once we were in the water, so she proceeded to lift her head and trunk and smash them down into the river multiple times as well as sink lower down on her haunches so that he got wet as well. Good on her I thought.

The whole experience was a fantastic one but I do struggle with the idea of using such magnificent animals as a tourist attraction. I was somewhat reassured though because these elephants were rescued from logging operations where they’d previously been pumped full of steroids to make them stronger and forced to carry huge loads for many hours at at time. Now they get medical attention, they do a couple of circuits of the river each day and sit in the river while they get scrubbed, which I’ve got to assume is a much better life for them.

Interesting elephant factoids:
– The gestation period of an elephant can be up to 24 months!
– Elephants communicate using a series of grumbles and growls as well as the infamous trumpeting. Humans can only hear some of their sounds, but I can assure you when they growl while you’re on top, you certainly feel it!
– Their teeth alone weight 5kg
– They can sense water up to 50km away
– Elephants can get sunburned – I know the feeling 😦

We finished the day with a trip up the river to a local waterfall similar to the Kwang Si fall we had visited in Luang Prabang but this time we hiked up stream a bit and managed to grab a swim in a totally deserted pool. Just heaven.