An elephant paradise - February 26-March 4, 2007

For my final week in Thailand, I decided to volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park, near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. This unique sanctuary rescues abused domestic elephants from all over the country and brings them to park where they can roam freely, interact with other elephants and just be elephants - no trekking, no begging food from tourists, no circus tricks. What a week - I'm not even sure how to put this wonderful experience into words.

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When we first arrived at the park, I knew this was indeed an elephant's paradise. There were elephants everywhere! Some were wandering leisurely through the grass, others were hanging out near the platform waiting anxiously for their food while nearby three baby elephants played with a tire swing.

It was an eyeopening first day - we learned about the horrific abuse domestic elephants in Thailand suffer, the history and work of the Elephant Nature Park, and its mission to change the way Thailand treats what is supposed to be a revered Buddhist icon and national symbol. Elephant tourism is huge in Thailand, but unfortunately, most of the elephants in trekking camps and begging in city streets are malnourished, mistreated and overworked.

Many of the elephants at the park had suffered agonizing treatment from their former owners and mahouts (trainers) before they were rescued - "Jokia" was blinded with arrows and sticks, "Lilly" was fed aphetamines and forced to work as a trekking elephant during the day and illegal logging at night. This particular elephant ("Mae") was forced to breed at too young an age and her back was broken by the aggressive male elephant.

All domestic elephants go through a brutal training regiment at a very young age - they are taken away from their mothers for the first time, enclosed in a tiny cage, deprived of food, sleep and water for 36 hours or more and beaten with hooks and sticks with nails. 40 per cent die from the training, while 50 per cent of those who survive go insane. It was a sobering first day.

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And yes... in case you're wondering, as a volunteer, I picked up elephant poo. Lots of it! We also prepared their food, fed them and bathed them in the river. There was also a lot of grunt work and very hard physical tasks -- hacking down banana trees with machetes, repairing a damaged roof, carrying heavy loads of bamboo.

But I enjoyed every moment - even though my body ached, my knees creaked and I've never been so stinky and dirty in my life! We had a great group of volunteers who made even the mundane job fun. But more importantly, it was great to see the elephants enjoy the fruits of our labour. For example, we had to dig out a huge mud pit with shovels and buckets - standing knee deep in a pool of muddy water, it was backbreaking work in the blazing sun. But seeing these baby elephants and even some of the adults sliding around and playing in the pit was worth every aching muscle!

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Of course, the best part of the week was getting close with the elephants, learning their different personalities and watching how they behave with each other. Every day, we got to handfeed the elephants and feel the strength of their trunks as they reached for the yummy bananas or watermelon.

In the river, we threw buckets of water on the elephants and used brushes to scrub their tough skin. On one magical overnight trip, we walked with one of the families (a baby, mother, aunt and a couple of males) up a mountain and into the jungle where they were released to wander and forage. But it was the unexpected moments that I will always remember -- like walking down from the volunteer huts to the main area and having the baby and mother walk nonchalantly across my path. Or hearing the sound of an elephant trumpet reverberating through the park and bouncing back from the surrounding mountains, which sent shivers down my spine.

I especially loved watching the passion and devotion with which the mothers and aunts protected their babies. I will never forget the image of one mother who heard her baby squeal and immediately thundered across the meadow at an incredible speed to get to him - with ears flaring, the dust rising around her feet, it was an awesome and somewhat scary sight - especially since we were in her direct path. We quickly moved out of the way of course!

All in all, it was an unforgettable experience... and if you would like to enjoy elephants in Thailand, I would encourage you to skip the hundreds of trekking camps throughout the country and head to the Elephant Nature Park instead.

Here's one of my favourite photos... the smaller elephant on the left is "Hope" - orphaned as a baby and rescued early on by the Park, he is now a healthy six year old boy. Like many youngsters, he enjoys bugging the older elephants in his family until they've had enough. They then usually turn around and give Hope a good thwacking.