Even though I hadn’t slept well for the prior week, it felt like the night before Christmas. I couldn’t sleep; I was too excited for what the next day had in store for us. While I felt the mosquitoes eating my face, fantastical visions of the upcoming events began playing emotions. What if they don’t like me? What if they all just run away? But, as the mixture of Singha and the other local alcohols settled, these visions finally became dreams.
Before
we knew it, the park’s mini-bus was waiting downstairs for us. As I quadruple
checked my camera equipment, my girlfriend tortured my neck with sunscreen and
deet. Ahhh!! It was time to go. It was time to finally come face to face with
my first true love.
If
I knew how far it actually was from Chiang Mai to Chiang Dao, I would have
tried to calm myself down during the voyage. But because of my constant
questioning of where we were and attention spent on everything we drove by, by
the time we got there, I was worn out. As we pulled up to the destination
though, I felt like a floating butterfly.
There
they were, as my girlfriend and I hurried out of the mini-bus to only be
stopped by our “tour guide” we got even closer to the amazing creatures. The
Thai woman then started explaining what was going to happen today and the
agenda, I blacked out. I have no clue what she said; all attention was focused
on them. She walked us closer and
gave us all an area to wait with food in hand. Ready. Then, one by one, each of
them approached each us. As I felt the sweat stinging down my neck, I stuck
half of a Kabocha squash out. The mammals trunk then wrapped its self around the food,
and then proceeded to throw it in her mouth.
While
spending most of the day feeding, petting and washing the elephants, I learned
much more than expected. But, I left sadder than expected. We learned about all
the different elephants that were at the park, from their names to what
industry they were enslaved to before they were rescued. Though many cases
dealt with poachers and harsh conditions in other tourist attractions, most of
the problems stemmed from deforestation. In “Societal Change and the Control of
Deforestation in Thailand”, Alan Grainger states that at one point in the early
1900’s Thailand’s national forest coverage was 75%. Sadly, since then it has
dropped down below 25%. These forests are home and protection for the wild
Asian elephants. As they get
chopped down, elephants are lost beneath the trees and revealed to poachers.
The place we journeyed to, to see these elephants was The Elephant Nature Park in an area near Chiang Dao, Thailand.
This article provides an in-depth look at the ivory trade. Much of it takes place in Africa but also very relevant in South Asia.
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