Elephants and Monkeys

Whilst staying in Chiang Mai, I booked a 2day/1night excursion to Elephant Nature Park, an elephant sanctuary that had been reccomended to me when talking to people back in the UK. It was amazing! As well as learning loads about elephants and observing and learning about their natural behaviour, we got to take part in the feeding of the elephants, watch them bathing and playing in the river, walk around the park with the guide to visit and watch the different groups of elephants or ‘herds’ and even prepare and hand deliver special food for the oldest elephants, who have difficulty eating and need special care. We were also told about many of the backstories of the individual elephants, which were invariably very sad, but enlightening all the same. Elephants are thought to be as intelligent as dolphins, and under natural circumstances lead complex emotional lives with complex social connections. This is one of the reasons why it is now considered unethical for them to be used for days, weeks and months on end to give monotonous rides to tourists, and unfortunately also magnifies the suffering they experience when mistreated, as the mental scars are often much harder to heal than the physical ones. I met elephants who had dislocated hips or backs from being forced to pull heavy logs in the illegal logging trade, elephants who had scars and injuries from being used in forced breeding programs (which can lead to the bull elephants attacking the females,) elephants who had been blinded by years of being forced to perform under the harsh and damaging circus spotlights, and elephants with injuries to their feet and legs from stepping on landmines during farm work. In contrast to this, there was one adorable elephant named Faa mai who was the first to be born in the park and raised without mistreatment, and whose cheeky antics really shine a light on how downtrodden and unnatural the behaviour of some of the others is, as a result of their long term mental damage.

The philosphy of Elephant Nature Park is to give love and care to all of the elephants, and to give them the chance to live as naturally as possible. Among the many Elephant sanctuaries that are springing up around Thailand as more tourists become aware that riding elephants is unethical, Elephant Nature Park is leading the way, and both the park and it’s founder Lek have received international recognition for innovative practices in elephant care and conservation. In addition to elephants, they also take in dogs, cats, buffalo and horses (I’ve got a feeling they would find a way to care for pretty much any animal if it was in need,) lead reforestation and conservation programs in the local area, and work with local people to educate them about elephant care and help them run their own operations in a more ethical way. I felt honoured to be part of such of such a special place even for just a couple of days, and really enjoyed staying there amongst the animals.

Having left from Chinag Mai, and after two days spent on trains, (with a brief stop off in Bangkok on the way,) I arrived in Surat Thani, and decided to use my free day there to go and visit the monkey training college “First Monkey School.” I had been very curious when I first read about it and wanted to go and see for myself, and learn more. It turns out that coconut growing is a major industry in Southern Thailand, and most of the plantation owners use monkeys as working animals to climb up the tall trees and harvest the coconuts (I had no idea!) The thing is though, monkeys don’t naturally just climb trees and pass the coconuts down to humans, so they need training, and hence you need a monkey school. Farmers pay the equivalent of around £700 and the training lasts around 3-6 months depending on the monkey. However once trained, a monkey can harvest around 1000 coconuts per day, compared to around 100 per day for a fit and experienced person! The innovative thing about “First Monkey School” in Surat Thani compared to other monkey schools is that instead of the traditional ‘stick and carrot’ method of reward and punishment, it’s founder advocated an approach based on Buddhist teachings that involves spending time to understand the behaviour of monkeys and adapt it gradually through regular lessons, without the need for punishment. It is both more humane, and apparently more effective in the long term. In any case, my visit to the college was an entertaining and enjoyable experience, especially since it also involved lots of tasting of coconut and coconut ice-cream!

Carrying on the monkey theme, my next stop along the road was Kao Sok National Park, which is home to… (you guessed it!) … monkeys (or more precisely ‘spectacled langurs.’) I took a day off from cycling to go hiking in the national park, and was lucky enough to see some jumping around in the trees – I was so excited! In the same trip, I also saw a monitor lizard foraging around in the undergrowth, and heard some pretty amazing noises that were being produced by insects the trees! As was riding away from Kao Sok the following morning, all I could think of was how lucky I was to have seen these amazing creatures in the wild, on top of having visited the domesticated elephants and monkeys previously. I was just thinking this to myself when, all of sudden, what should I see coming along the road towards me, but an Elephant! I could hardly believe my eyes! He was just walking nonchalantly down the road, being herded along from behind by a guy on a motorbike!

To top it all off, today (Wednesday) I went kayaking this morning through another national park (Thanbok Khorani national park) and saw MORE monkeys (long tailed macaques) and ANOTHER monitor lizard! I’m certainly getting my fair share of exotic animals these last few weeks, and thoroughly enjoying it!