Luang Prabang

Historically the Laos was called 'the land of a million elephants' and still has the elephant as its national animal today. However war, poaching and land encroachment by humans has led to the population reducing to 1600, 500-600 of which are made to work in the logging industry, their great power used to fell trees and carry lumber.

We hoped being in South East Asia would give us an opportunity to see these beautiful creatures up close and perhaps even ride one. There are many places in Laos and Thailand you can do this but with varying degrees of how the elephants are treated by their owners. We are very keen to not engage in any tourism that does not properly care for animals so after talking to Keo, he recommended 'Elephant Village', just outside of Luang Prabang.

The village rescues elephants from mistreatment and provides employment for locals previously poaching or working in the logging industry. The village has 14 females and 2 babies (they do not keep a bull in the camp as it would be too aggressive to safely manage). Each elephant has a 'mahout' who has worked with her for years; riding, training and caring for her.

Rescuing an elephant can cost as much $20,000, as even old elephants have value (their meat) and their care is high maintenance, each requiring at least 250kg of food and 80 gallons of water a day. It may not be the wild, where ultimately elephants should be, but the village appears to give them as much freedom as realistically possible (they still have to be chained by a foot when taken out of the village to feed as otherwise they wander off and eat a local farmer's livelihood).

We began by learning how to climb up and sit upon an elephant and give basic commands in Lao to manoeuvre it. Accomplishing this, we headed out on a 3km trek with a mahout, Hueng, to help guide us with our elephant, 43 year old Hamkoon. Hueng first took Hamkoon up through a steep narrow trail into the rainforest, Hamkoon's huge feet squelching into the reddish brown mud to leave deep prints. We swayed above on her back, titling backwards and forwards at 45 degrees or more to face the forest floor or canopy. Upon clearing the ridge line of trees, we gazed out across the Nam Khan River to the lush green mountains of Laos. Once through this difficult terrain Hueng allowed us to take turns riding Hamkoon for ourselves. Our hands on top of her broad grey head, feeling her powerful muscles move under our legs as we plodded onwards.

Back at the village we fed Hamkoon bananas by way of thanks and then took all the elephants (Kim -Hamkoon, Alex - 40 year old Sinook) down to the river to bathe them. The elephants dipped their heads under the water to leave us nearly waist deep and spray water back at us with their trunks. We used pails and scrubbing brushes to clean their wrinkled course skin, dotted with thick black hairs.

We visited the 2 baby elephants, kept in a separate enclosure on the other side of the river, who appeared playful and interested in us, if only at the prospect of being fed more bananas. We travelled further along the river to the Tad Sae waterfalls, which unlike the Kuang Si falls yesterday were much clearer and safer to swim in. The water a never-ending cascade of white water over multiple tiers of sandy rock. We wandered waist deep between the top and middle levels of the falls, the shade and the water cooling us after a day under the hot sun with the elephants.

It was a brilliant day, one of the best in fact and one we will never forget...Read more