January 17, 2018

January 17, 2018

Today our touring finally had a late start. It is nice to have a leisurely morning once in awhile. Our first stop is at an Orchid Farm. These flowers are epiphytes with dangling aerial roots. They have two plots with a dozen rows of beautiful orchids of all colors of the rainbow.

The facility also has a butterfly house. We visited one before in Tucson, but it is always fun to watch and photograph these delicate creatures. In particular these butterflies were kind enough to stop and pose frequently for photographs. Once we got our fill of flowers and insects, we sat down for our buffet lunch.

After lunch we drove up into the mountains and then loaded onto a truck for the last leg to an Elephant Sanctuary. We signed up for “Mahout” training. A mahout is an elephant caretaker. Historically elephants were work animals used in battles and for moving heavy loads. Most recently they were used in the Teak logging industry. The Animal Rights movement has now limited what can be done with elephants.

Our first activity was bathing four elephants in the river. Surprisingly only five of our group was willing to get wet and involved. My first impression is the size of these animals. They are big and massive. I am a gnat to them. I am careful not to get accidentally crushed between two or under one when they roll over in the river. I am given a wicker water bucket and told to get busy. The elephant skin is surprisingly thick, rough, and full of bristles. I guess you need armor if you are crashing through the jungle. I don’t think the elephant can feel me rubbing her. Near the end, the male tusked elephant gets in a shoving match with a large tree dangling in the river.

Next is feeding. Each elephant has some special diet supplements. Aimee gets active mixing and kneading them with some rice and tamarind beans into tennis ball-size pellets . I get a basket of bananas and short sugarcane stalks. Elephants are voracious eaters consuming hundreds of pounds per day. They must like the sweets we are giving them as they hungrily take them with their trunk and immediately shove them in the mouth. At one point an elephant reaches in and takes a bunch of bananas and swallows it whole. The sugar cane sticks are eaten with great crushing sounds.

Next we learn to mount the elephant. There are no stairs like in India. The real mahout commands the elephant to lift a leg and then grabbing the top of the ear, you can step like a stairs from shin to thigh and then crawl onto the back. We then shinny forward and straddle the neck behind the ears. We ride our elephant around the yard for a few minutes. Dismounting is the reverse but a little harder trying to locate the leg ”steps” by feel.

Our last activity is some parting photos. Unexpectedly it comes with hugs and kisses. With an elephant, it is a big, slobbery kiss with a monster vacuum-cleaner trunk.