maggies_lens

We spent the night in a funky little hut, just Marion and I as Craig was back in Chiang Mai; he had awoken the morning we left with a terrible migraine so hadn't come. We both missed him. The hut was just a small thing, no air con, two beds with mosquito netting and a sep room with a toilet and COLD WATER ONLY shower. Which was just fine - you don't actually need the hot water there :D It was right on the banks of the river, so I fell asleep to the sounds of insects, bats and the river tripping along on the shallows. No traffic sounds at all. Sheer freakin' heaven. God I loved it there...
Anyway, next morning we had a glorious breakfast. They feed you like royalty there. At breakfast, lunch and dinner we gathered at the complex and could serve ourselves from a huge selection of yummies. Apart from one dish with chook and one with fish, everything was veggie and BEAUTIFUL! I have discovered Dragon Fruit and I LOVE it. Ate sooooooo much!
We got to have a walk around with our guide Por, out in the actual grounds. Had to wear gumboots. It was awesome walking around amoung the elephants. Most are very happy to come up and have a cuddle with you :) I got to cuddle Mae Do. Unfort I slipped and fell onto my knees twice from getting my foot caught in the ropey grass. The first scared me because it's actually the first time I have fallen onto the bad knee since I killed it. Yeah it hurt, but not so bad. 2nd one was alright. But it did bruise up and jarred itself so I was happy to just hang out once we got back to the main complex.
Best thing was when I ran into Lek! Lek is the founder of the Park. She is a very small woman, a grand-daughter of a shaman of a local Northern Hill Tribe. Her family was given an elephant when she was 5 as payment for saving a mans life, and Lek's heart was stolen forever. She took her passion for elephant welfare forward and started Elephant Heaven. She rescued her first 4 elephants. Things grew, one day an American come on a tour, a week or so after he left they received a MASSIVE cheque. Turns out he's a multi millionaire and was so impressed with the work that he wanted to buy them land. With that money they purchased ENP. Things have just kept growing since then. They still have Heaven, they walk the ellies there to let them roam free and learn to be wild again. The dream is to one day stop the capture of wild elephants so they can release them. Logging was banned in Thailand a few years ago but not in the surrounding countries. And illegal logging continues. Plus the begging trade and tracking. Begging is BAD. It's extremely stressful for the elephants. NEVER feed a begger elephants. You are just contributing to the problem. Tracking is not bad as long as the elephants are kept in humane conditions. There are also NO laws protecting elephants. Lek is working to change all that. She employs local people from the hill tribes as guides, staff, cooks, kwan's, she buys the locally grown and produced veggies and fruit, plus meat, eggs, milk etc. She hires local labor for building etc. It all comes back to paying it forward. As a result, the local community loves and supports her work. She was ultra busy but she made the effort to track me down when she heard I wanted to meet her, so that we could have a chat and a photo. She called the baby herd over and took me in among them (not normally allowed) so that I could get a shot to remember.
She is quite frankly my hero. It's people like this who are true heroes, not stupid sports stars or actors or whatever. I didn't want to leave. I so didn't want to leave. I will be back.
They also had a little brown colt pony who they rescued from slaughter. I couldn't get any photos of the little devil as he was in grass/reeds higher than his head when we near him.


BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABIIIIIIEEEEEEEES!!!!

( photos under here )

I will be back as soon as I can. Honestly, if you are strapped for cash but want a holiday, I can not recommend this place enough. No, you won't be lounging on a beach somewhere; you will be working HARD. You won't have air con, you'll have the heat and humidity of the jungle and you will sweat so much that after two days your skin will look like you've had a VERY exxy treatment and radiate health and a killer bitchin' tan. You won't get polite, distant staff who keep their eyes down and wear impeccable uniforms, you will get hill tribe men and women in gumboots and jeans with a lighting fast smile that reaches their eyes, they will teach you Thai, joke around with you, feed you like you have NEVER been fed before in your life (not fine dining but OMG SO SO SO GOOD!!!!!! And plentiful), chat with you for hours, and make you feel welcome like no tourist resort EVER would. You'll wear gumboots, slosh around in warm mud, touch and hug and kiss and scratch the largest land animals who will rumble like big kittens if you connect with them. You'll learn to tell an elephants age through their scat! You'll find these awesome fern like plants that curl up when you gently run your finger over them. And if you are anything like me, you'll wish you could throw it all in to live there forever, no matter how hard and dirty it gets because, well, it's simply the most wonderful place ever created by human hands.