Where to begin!!! This day was simple the best!!!
Breakfast at our hotel and then to the dock to cross the river to Mekong Elephant Park. We’d tried to book a room to stay in the park, but that’s one of the disadvantages on not having a plan until the last minute.
Wendy met us at the dock. She and her team run the park. We learned later that her husband manages the fancy Sanctuary Hotel. During our visit we also met her 18 month old son and her parents who are visiting from the south of France for 6 weeks.
And, we met the 6 elephants who call this park home. All are rescue. Several from the logging industry, one from the circus in Japan, one from a village in Thailand. This is the third elephant experience we’ve had on this trip. Each one has been totally different and each has been “the best” in its own way. The first, Kuri Buri National Park, was home to over 300 wild elephants. Really wild; they are not even tagged. The second, Elephant Freedom Project, we got to feed and pet the elephants; we got to prepare their snacks and walk in the jungle with them. At today’s site, Mekong Elephant Park, we learned. Wendy was a wealth of information even about the delicate a difficult questions. There were about 12 of us for the morning but only five stayed after lunch. Lunch had a very French influence (crepe with fruit for dessert) woven in with the Laotian focus.
For the elephants, it was all about the items they can get from the jungle. The oldest elephant (71 years) has lost most of her teeth.
From Justin: “Elephants rely on their molars to process the very hard/fibrous/woody materials that make up a large part of their diet. Hers are badly worn down. In the wild, she might have died years ago, but here they feed her food that is soft and/or ground up. The other elephants go deeper into the forest and up steeper grades for forage where she can no longer go, so she is always the first to be fed. Elephants show weight loss first by developing hollows between their eyes and ears. She’s losing weight due to her badly worn molars, but gradually because of her advanced and excellent care, she is still beautiful.”
Also from Justin: “This is the younger male, and the great hope of the organization. They hope to breed these animals for release in the wild and AI is $90,000. Unfortunately, he had been abused when younger and was in pretty bad shape when he arrived, so at 34 he’s a little off schedule, but signs are good that he will make a full recovery and be ready for the ladies.”
Later in the afternoon we chopped ingredients we’d gathered to make “vitamin balls”. Because it is dry season, the tender delicacies are less prevalent so human gathering is called for. Mixed with sticky rice, these snacks are used to supplement the diet.
The animals get a vet check each week. Today, this lady got a manicure too.
A highlight and last activity of the day was walking with the elephants to the river and watching them bathe.
One of the tough questions (at least for me): We use horses and all sorts of cattle as working animals, what’s so bad about using elephants in the same manner?
Wendy prefaced her response with “It’s not all black and white.” Then she went on the explain… it’s not the fact that you have two people on the back of the elephant, it is when you put six people up there. And, then you do that all day long. The animal, in the wild will spend 12-18 hours each day eating 400-600 pound of vegetation. If the animal is in the circus, on concrete, they can’t get the exercise they need. Even in the more “ethical” parks that are popular now, guests want to swim with the elephants. The trainers must keep the elephants still so that guests can’t get hurt.
Sunset and dinner at The Sanctuary Hotel before we walked the short distance back to our hotel. Another simply fabulous day!
I will want to make this when we get back to Green Bay and have fresh tomatoes. Hollow out the tomato and stuff with a tuna salad made with quinoa and wasabi mayo -- we didn't order it because I thought "I can make that."
