Walking with Elephants!

Twelve years ago, when Mario and I first traveled to Southeast Asia, we had the chance to take a 3-day trek through the hill-tribe villages of Thailand, which included a ride on an elephant. At the time, we thought this was the coolest thing EVER, along with just about ever other experience we had during that 3-week trip. Elephant-trekking has since become a slightly more frowned-upon activity, and the creation of elephant sanctuaries, where the primary goal is the happiness of the animal, and NOT the tourists, are becoming the norm. That's not to say that there are not STILL elephant-riding camps out there, and easily accessible, too, but people look at you a little differently when you say you've gone to Southeast Asia to ride the elephants.

Once upon a time, Laos was known as the land of one million elephants. Those numbers have decreased exponentially, and for one main reason: the elephants are dying more than they are being born. This is incredibly problematic because it leads to a small gene pool, and a small population leads to in-breading, and weaker generations of elephants. One of the main goals of the elephant sanctuaries is to encourage breeding between domesticated elephants(the rescued ones) and wild elephants that still roam the remote jungles of Laos. They are hoping to produce a stronger generation of elephants to help with the re-population of the species, and with a gestation period of 22 months per calf, the process will take a while.

We chose to spend our day with Mandalao, one of the most reputable elephant sanctuaries in Luang Prabang. Our activities are based around the elphants' schedule and their well-being, since happy elephants are healthy elephants. We are introduced to two older females, and given bunches of fingers bananas and sticks of sugar cane to bribe them. The adage when it comes to elephants is "NO FOOD, NO FRIEND," and this is especially true of our two graceful grey beasts. They gently remove the snacks from our outstretched hands, drooling on us in return, and as soon as they realize we have nothing left, they are no longer interested, moving on the next person with food. Now, I say snack, because this is essentially what we are giving them - a large basket of bananas and an armful of sugarcane do not an elephant feed. They will eat AT LEAST 250 kg of food each day, so what we are doing is basically teasing them!


The day continues in much the same manner: the elephants go for a walk in the jungle, snacking on trees and plants along the way. We walk with them, leading, following, moving out of the way, stopping for them when they eat. We arrive at a small camp halfway through the day, and the elephants are given several banana TREES to munch on. Afterwards, they head to a small watering hole to splash in the mud - elephant sunscreen and bug spray, we are told. While they eat and play, we have our lunch, a Lao feast packaged in banana leaves, and our guide, Noi, shows us how to eat with our fingers and make balls of sticky rice. It is the most delicious picnic in the jungle I have ever had.

We finish lunch and take a small walk through the jungle to a nearby village, and then to two small waterfalls, while the elephants are resting. There has been no rain for a month and a half, so the waterfalls are more like trickles - not very impressive. In the village, we sit with some of the locals while Noi, talks of daily life of the Hmong who live here. We look on as one man builds a new home on the outskirts of the village, brick and mortar with handmade wooden doors, while he is surrounded by bamboo and thatch huts. We ask Noi what the people think of his undertaking. The other people want to know who this fancy guy is, in here and building his fancy brick house. As we sit listening to Noi, one of the older women points to my skin and compares it with her deep colouration - we both laugh, because even after 3 weeks in the sun, I am still white as snow compared to her dark brown tint. It's funny how you never really need words to communicate.

Back at the elephant camp, we begin the walk back with our two pachyderm guides. They continue to rip vines from trees and shred leaves from branches as we go, one even removing an entire tree as though is was a toothpick, and happily walking up the path like a dog with a bone. It has been an awesome day, but we have to part ways, so we get one last chance to pet and hug and be with the gentle giants, and then its back to the city.

Our evening is, funnily enough, more strenuous than our jungle trek with elephants. We climb to the top of sacred Mount Phousi(pronounced Pou-see), to visit the temple and see the sun setting over the Mekong. All 290-something steps. Turns out, that half of the tourists in the city have the same idea, and the sunset is hazy and non-existent, so we head back down. On our descent, we pass a sign advertising traditional Lao storytelling, starting in 30 minutes. We high-tail it across town to the rather intimate venue. Here, we are entertained by the storytelling of a very energetic young man, accompanied by an older musician who is playing a khene, a traditional Lao bamboo mouth organ. The show, Garavek, is excellent, and anyone coming to Luang Prabang should go see it, as they have a performance every night.

We found ourselves back in the night market again, finishing our long and eventful day with more delicious food, this time from one of the street vendors, spicy Luang Prabang sausage and chicken cooked on a giant bamboo skewer. This place is growing on me - I don't know if I will want to leave.