Thailand - Day 6-8: Elephant Camp

After getting a quick breakfast of pork and rice, we caught a local bus to the Elephant Conservation Center. Local bus drivers are a bit more daring on the road than I feel comfortable with, but we made it to the entrance of the Center in one piece. A small tour bus was nice enough to give Scott and I (and our huge backpacks) a ride to the center of the camp, 1.5 kilometers away. After signing some paperwork we were asked to change into out Mahout suits and were introduced to our elephants. My elephant was a 7 year old girl named Jan-na. Scott's, one of the largest elephants here in the camp, was named JoJo. We got to learn some commands, bath them in the river, and watch the real Mahouts perform with the elephants in the tourist show. In the afternoon we rode one of the "taxi" elephants, which were rescued logging elephants after logging became illegal in Thailand. These elephants were not as friendly as the performing elephants and therefore, became taxi elephants here at the camp. After the last performance, we took out elephants into the jungle for the night to eat and relax.


Our cabins were located amongst the Mahouts and other camp workers. We were told that they have to leave their families for many months at a time and have to build their our cabins in the camp. Back in our cabins we showered (we even had hot water and toilets), napped, and helped cook dinner in the outdoor kitchen. The other guests at the camp included a British couple living in Singapore, and older Australian couple, and two girls from Germany.

The next morning one of the mahouts knocked on our door at about 6:00 am to put on our wet mahout suits and get our elephants from the jungle. It was a lot harder climbing up the hill than it was yesterday on the back of Jan-na. After finding Jan-na pretty close to where we left her (we did chain them up), we brushed her off and bathed her in the river on the way back to the show grounds. When we got back to our rooms we found nice fresh, dry suit to wear. What a treat! We all washed off, dressed, and sat down for breakfast. Then it was back to the show grounds for training and bathing. In the afternoon we went to tour the elephant hospital. The students and some mahouts prepared dinner for us again and we noticed that they were preparing some thing different for themselves. They let us try some frog leg soup, but the rest looked way to spicy for me.


On the last day at the Elephant Conservation Center we were able to help perform in the morning tourist show with our elephants. By this time my legs and rear were pretty sore from riding Jan-na, but it was worth it. I was sad that we had to go. Simon and Alisa, the British couple, let us share their taxi back to the main road so we could catch the local bus back to Lampang. After sitting at the bus stop for 45 minutes I was getting pretty worried, when finally a green local bus came around the bend.

Back in Lampang, we got the same taxi driver to to take us back to the Riverside Guest House. This time they only had air-conditioned rooms left, I was annoyed at first, but it turned out to be totally worth 600 Baht. Our room was much bigger and had a lovely window and off course the air was great. A Crazy taxi man charged us 500 baht to take us to Wat Phra That Lampang Lung. I think he was totally lost on the way back and dropped us off in the middle of a huge street market. We wondered around and realized we were not to far from the guest house. We tried some sticky coconut candy and some other street vender foods. We also found a bowling alley, so we decided to play a game.