Larger than life: An elephant experience

In as much as I generally dislike doing 'touristy' things, I do believe in involving myself fully in the varied experiences that are considered unique to a region. I am not inclined to object to doing something that many other people do on the basis of principle. This small preamble is a in fact a lead up to me telling you that I went to be a Manhout for a day. To lamens a Manhout is someone who takes care of elephants. 

I should clarify that I am a devout believer in animal rights. I am not at ease with circuses, zoos and anything that exploits animals for human entertainment. I do however support animal refuges. The Baanchang Elephant Camp is of such. They do not make their elephants dance, perform and neither do they make use of sharp instruments to 'train' their elephants. They explain that the point of carry such devices as the 'hook' you may have seen is to protect themselves. Elephants are after all, wild animals with large tusks.  You may ask then what is the point of operating 'manhout courses'?! The point of tourists coming to the camp is not to get tacky photos of themselves in elephant trunks (of which the trainers will refuse to make the elephants do). The point is to monetarily support the camp (elephants eat 300kg of food a day) so that they may be able to also buy more land for their elephants. Everything they have, they worked for without governmental support. For example, the day I went our guide had not had any sleep. He had been up all night rescuing a 23 year old elephant whose sole existance revolved around taking touists on 20min rides.This elephant had cost the camp approximately $20,000. 

My experience began by learning about elephants and committing to memory the commands the mahouts give them to go forward, right, left etc. We would need these later as we directed our elephants through the forest on a 1 hr trek. Before you object, elephants eat for 18hrs a day and sleep for only 4 – the trek is in service of their exercise, we ride bareback so as not to hurt them and there is a 15 break for them after half an hour. In gratitude for our ride, we then were able to bathe our elephants (which they love) and feed them again. It is hard for me to communicate how much the mahouts love their elephants. They NEVER take holidays or even leave the camp for more than three hours. They feed, clean up after and even sleep with their elephants, their family. I went with a sceptical mind such that I thought it was all a gimmic aimed at gulible touists but, it was amazing to take a peek at their family environment and share in their love for the two tonne gentle giants of Thailand.