Norb's Thailand Adventure: The Elephant Nature Park (ENP)

(Note: Photos at end of post. Easier that way.)

Monday morning we left our quaint quarters on the outskirts of Chaing Mai and headed to the city office of the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) to check in for our week of volunteering. Are you really a volunteer if you are paying for the opportunity to work? Anyway, the place was beginning to bustle as people were arriving from various lodgings around the city. The atmosphere could be described as organized chaos, staff checking in the newcomers and reviewing their paper work; volunteers milling around and starting to introduce themselves to each other; the mound of luggage slowly growing and workers starting to load supplies into the vans and trucks which would take us to our destinations. There were also several dogs in the office. One was a cute looking three legged dog who was always lying on a couch by himself. It was funny to watch people walk up and try to pet him because he was actually mean and would snarl, bark and attempt to bite, although he never actually did, anyone who approached. I say funny because there was a sign that said “Do not pet the dog”, however; the sign was really small and not that near the dog. The way the dog responded, the sign should have been huge or hung around its neck, or maybe the dog should not have been in an office full of animal lovers. By the time the last folks arrived, a chorus of “Don’t pet the dog” went up from those who knew better to protect the uninitiated.

As we chatted while waiting to leave, we discovered that not everyone in the office was going to the ENP. Some had volunteered for the “Journey to Freedom”, a week long trek to a mountain village with the final day spent at the ENP. There were 12 people in our group including Vanessa and myself; Katie and Mark from the UK, Yolanda and Jeff a couple from Australia; Collin, a lone traveler, also from Australia who unfortunately for him would become my roommate; Kristina from Canada; Kitty from China; a family, also from China, Brian, Amy and their six year old son Ted. Ted was well behaved, smart, hard working, funny, delightful and an awesome addition to our group. Never did he whine, complain, or cry; except when he got hit in the face with a watermelon.

We finally boarded our van for the hour and a half ride to the ENP. The ENP is very rustic, nestled in a mountainous jungle setting with a river running through it and seems like a world away, but in reality it is only about a 10 minute drive from a major roadway and “civilization”. The river, although called by a different name in this area, is the same Ping river that runs through Chiang Mai. Arriving at the ENP we met our volunteer coordinator for the week, Jane (pronounced Jen). Before we were even shown our accommodations, we were off to our first chore, unloading the banana truck; and these elephants eat a lot of bananas….and melons, and pumpkins (more like large squash). During our week we unloaded several trucks of trucks of fruit and one of small coconut palms and sod; more like weed mats. We would set up two lines, with one person tossing the fruit from the truck to the next person in line until the last person tossed it on a pile or a shelf. It took about 1.5 hours of constant tossing to empty a truck. Bananas when green were fine, but the yellow ones could be over ripe, mushy and covered with ants or the occasional spider. The watermelons were the small, individual size ones you see in the grocery store. They could be sticky and covered with watermelon juice from the broken ones. Pumpkins were the worst on the hands because they were heavier, rougher, and sometimes if not tossed correctly, the stems would stab you. Once you were into the rhythm of tossing it went smoothly, but if one person in line got out of sync fruit went flying bouncing off bodies and/or smashing on the floor. It was at the end of one of these sessions that Katie tossed a melon and it somehow bounced and hit Ted in the face. He wound up with a bloody nose and small bruise under his eye and only cried for about 2 minutes. After that it was as if nothing happened to him. The kid was amazing. Although we sometimes dropped fruit, nothing was wasted. Broken fruit was thrown into a basket and later fed to the livestock.

We were finally shown our rooms. Basic accommodations with a bed or two covered with mosquito netting, although it really wasn’t necessary, and a bathroom-shower combo. For some reason these bathrooms did not have the hose next to the toilet like most Thai bathrooms. In Thailand, you cannot throw toilet paper into the toilet. Their plumbing system cannot handle it, so each toilet has a hose with nozzle next to the bowl. You use the hose to clean yourself and the toilet paper to pat dry. It is then tossed into the small garbage bin. It actually works quite nice, but most toilets are tiled and the floors always were wet, which sometimes wicked up into your pants. The rooms were also very poorly lit; one small, low wattage, lone bulb hanging about 12-15 feet high in the rafters. It provided just enough light to avoid bumping into things, nothing else. The corner storage rack was like a cave at midnight. A candle would have supplied more light. The walls were made of a stucco-like material until about 8 feet high and the rest of the way up it was woven bamboo. Sound traveled very well between rooms. I know this because I snore, apparently very loudly, and one morning Jeff, who was 4 rooms away, said he could clearly hear me. I’m not sure how Collin was able to put up with it, but I do know he slept with earbuds listening to music. Nice guy never complained.

The usual daily routine was breakfast at 7:00am; work from 8:00/8:30 until 10:00/11:00; lunch 11:30; work 1:00pm-3:00/4:00; and dinner at 6:00pm. Breakfast lunch and dinner were set times, while the others varied depending on how long it took to complete a task or when the food trucks showed up. They always took precedence. We didn’t find out until we got there that meals were all vegetarian, all the time. Lots of tofu and I hate tofu no matter how you cook it. Needless to say some of us were not happy with that situation. Even Kristina, who is a vegetarian, was tired of it by the end of the week. Kitty on the other hand loved it. My plate would be a cup of soup, small pile of rice, maybe some veggies, and cold French fries. Hers was piled high every meal and she always finished every bite. We were amazed at how much food she could put away, for such a small thin woman. We were told there was a village just a short way up the road, so Tuesday afternoon during our lunch break I took a walk to see it. The village on the road was just a couple houses and one of the local “stores” I had seen in our travels around the country. In front of the store was just what I had been looking for…. A grill! It wasn’t fired up for lunch, but I was confident that, like everyone I had seen before, it would be hot and grilling some meat for dinner. That evening, before our vegetarian dinner was to be served, I walked to the village. As I approached I could see the smoke and smell the sweet aroma of Thai marinated meat cooking. As I approached, what did I find, Jane and the cameraman enjoying grilled chicken, pork and cold beer. I think they were surprised to see me, but immediately asked me to join them. We had a good laugh as we savored delicious delectables. Once I informed the others meat was available, everyone joined the effort. From then our routine became visiting the grill at 5:00pm for meat and a beer before going to our regular dinner. Even Kristina joined us one day for the experience, not the meat.

In addition to unloading trucks, work included picking up litter around the park, shoveling elephant poo, cleaning the pens where the elephants slept at night, preparing food, and “improving” the elephant mud pit. I think that last job was just made up to make the volunteers look silly knee deep in muck and splattered with mud. We did it one day with shovels and buckets, then saw it being done two days later with a tractor and fire hoses. Hmmmm! There were additional jobs being done by other volunteers; gathering bananas form the farm, cutting and shucking corn or picking up small rocks from the river bed to later be used in the construction of new buildings. And there were seasonal jobs like building firebreaks on the mountainside during the hot, dry summer. That job sounded hard, hot and back-breaking and made shoveling poo sound like fun!

That’s it for now. I have more stories to tell, but since it is taking me so long to finish I may just end this blog with a final post of photos.