After the long trek and waterfall trip yesterday we decided that the best thing left to do in Luang Prabang was a visit to the Elephant Village. The village is a small non-profit that cares and maintains nine Elephants that have been abandoned or found abused. The majority of these elephants were previously owned by logging companies that use elephant labor extensively (I believe about 1/3 of the elephants remaining in Laos are used for this purpose). We were picked up at our hotel around 8:30AM and joined five others for a day riding and training elephants. The group consisted of two younger Australian girls (Asia is lousy with Australians) that were killing some time before a friend's wedding in Vietnam, a mother and her daughter from the UK, and one lone girl from Australia.
The day started with Melissa and me in a carriage mounted on top of an elephant. We had a local elephant rider called a "Mahout" who guided the elephant through a roughly one mile course along, and through the camp and river. Both of us being new to elephant riding we observed closely what the mahout was doing and were both amazed at how much prodding the elephant appeared to need to move forward. The guide repeatedly had to give our elephant small taps to the back of her ears to keep her moving forward (because mail elephants can be aggressive all of the camp's elephants are female.). We later found out that this was particular only to our elephant because it was blind. The elephant used its trunk as a walking stick and the mahout's constant prodding to move through the rather treacherous path, amazing!
We made our way back to the camp and the real fun began, we were able to purchase bundles of unripe bananas to feed to our now hungry elephants. The elephants are pretty neat to watch eat - they all start investigating the air in front of them with their trunks in search of treats. Because ours was in the back I had to brave a gauntlet of about 7 trunks to get our bananas back to their correct recipient. Our little blind elephant loved the bananas and due to her poor vision was very aggressive with her trunk, ferreting out any treats in the vicinity.
After the elephants were fed we moved on to some training, with our guide Mr. Sai. Teaching us how to approach and elephant (hint, not from behind) along with some basic commands like forward and stop. I was chosen to ride the elephant first and was even allowed to ride the elephant alone. I would grade my mahout skills at a solid C-, the elephant listened for a little while, but clearly called me out at one point by stopping to eat some bushes at its leisure as I yelled out to move forward. I was allowed a short ride around the camp and then dismounted. Melissa rode next and did an admirable job, for one reason or another a mahout rode along with her (probably because the elephants don't always respond to women). Melissa kept the elephant on track and also fed it some sugar cane as a reward for its good behavior.
We broke for a lunch of beef and ginger, along with salad and (of course) rice. We talked to the others and found out a little about their backgrounds. It turns out the lone girl was a volunteer veterinarian and was here to learn about how the elephants are cared for. She was also at the Asiatic bear reserve that we visited yesterday near the waterfalls. After lunch we were told to change into our swim suits as we would be bathing the elephants.
I think we were all a little apprehensive about the next part of the tour. We all dutifully changed into our swim suits and left all of our belongings behind. Paired with a mahout we each mounted an elephant and started down towards the water. We all knew we would be getting wet, but the uncertainty of how made everyone laugh nervously as we marched into the river. When we got about 20 feet from the shore the first signs became clear; the mahout signaled that they would be moving to the front and each tourist should move to the back of his or her elephant. I have noticed there is a fraternity of people (apparently of any culture) who guide others in some manner on the water. This fraternal relationship is always most apparent when they are unceremoniously dumping their customers in the water. The smiles the mahouts shared when they all in unison gave the command for the elephants to rise up and dump everyone in the water looked very familiar to the ones I have seen every river raft guide give me just before we reach the rapids invariably referred to as "guide's revenge" or "bottoms up".
After the initial shock of being dumped in the river from the back of an elephant subsided we had a wonderful time. The guides would have the elephants go almost completely under water leaving us half in and half or of the water. We brushed the elephants while they sprayed water all about. The mahouts then let us try a round of elephant surfing with us standing on the elephants back. It felt good to cool off in the water after a hot day, and I am sure it was the highlight of the elephants' day as well.
Tomorrow we have a leisurely morning before catching a 1pm flight to the capital of Laos, Vientiane.
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