Ban Lang Ka

Dear travel journal,
Today was pretty fun. I woke up in my mosquito net to the sounds of animals going crazy. 6am the elephants and dogs and what sounded like every animals in a 5km radius had just gone nuts until the sun rose st 6.30am. And our friendly bungalow cat banging and meowoming at the back door. He wanted in and had left us a masdive gecko which he had eaten one leg and the tail but it was still alive i so i put it in a corner, hopefully it will recover. He was cute and i totally would have let sleep with me. I got up after having a bit of a lay in and got sorted for the day and packed my bags and headed down for breaky. We had a bit of time after breaky before meeting apple our guide so we went back and checked out of the room. We had the enclosures that have the elephants under veterinary direction behind our bungalow, and one of the girls where getting the morning treatment which was cool to watch. She sat down with her feet pointing out behind her and the vet washed the foot with a hose, scrubbed it, im what looked like tea wash and covered it in iodine solution before covering it with spray. Then it was back to bed for the elephant. Then we went for a bit of a walk around the park and watched the different herds get out of bed and wander around and have breaky A couple of them with blankets over them and fires set by their mahouts to keep them warm overnight. The herd with the tiny baby we playing with ropes and swing tires and they all crossed the river, holding the baby up on the way, which was pretty cool. But then their mahouts had to go and get them because river crossed over into someone elses land. Then after our walk we had a bit more free time so i headed up to the domestic clinic and asked if i could have a look around. One of the girls showed me around which was cool. The clinic was tiny but super functional. Out the front were a few different cages, one housing like maybe 15 puppies about 10 weeks that they had got in yesterday. Then two banks of cages which were quite small that had dogs with parasits, one that had an open wound that had been maggot infected, an amputated tail, renal failure and a couple of hit by cars. One kid had been moved closure to the treatment rooms in a cage on wheels and had an iv in looking pretty sad and skinny but he bowl had been touched which is always good. The treatment room had a tiny puppy on the table with a worm burden that was getting a blood transfusion from one of the park dogs. They were cross matching while getting the puppy ready. The next room was a tiny theatre. They use a weird drug mixture and then maintain with iso. And the next room had cats in cages and a dog who had just been spayed recovering on the floor. For a tiny, middle of no where clinic they have xrays, new microscopes, oxygen, anaesthetic everything, autoclavs. The vets i was talking to (one from the uk and one from america) said that they are actually lucky and can do quite a bit. They were also saying that ticks can be a big issue. They dont have paralysis ticks and they rarely see lymes but with burdens they do get quite sick. So the animals all get bravecto. Which is awesome but they dont get worming routinely which is interesting - but they are trying to being that in. They were also saying that during the wet season, pneumonia is really bad and almost untreatable by the time they arrive at the clinic which sucks balls. So after my domestics chat and visit and i walked back down to the main area and went out on the sky walk and sat and read until lunch, then had lunch and then sat and read until 1pm. At 1pm dr. Jo one of the park vets came and picked me up and showed me around the park clinic - which is for all the other animals that arent domestics, elephants, horses, ponies, goats and water bufflow. It wad pretty cool. They had two big white boards with all the patients names and treatments written down which was pretty cool. Then we sat outside and watched all the elephants come and go from their afternoon baths in the river and made gauze squares from a massive roll. Then we collected a whole bunch of stuff and headed up to the horse paddocks. Dr jo took one of the horses into the stables and handed me a bucket with chlorhex in the bottom, a sponge and a hose and said wash the horse and dissapeared. Lol good thing i like horses. He wasnt too fond of the water or his face being touched but he was a good boy. I wet him down with the hose and then gave him a chlorhec scrub. He has really flacky skin with some wounds around his face and neck that looked like they where healing really well. Then i rinsed him off and got handed a pair of scissors and i had to removed the dressing from his front left hoof. Then the vet gave it a good scrub while i flushed with chlorhex, his poor foot was all cracked and open and a big almost pressure wound looking on the bottom. Then i covered it in iodine and put a nappy on as an absorbant pad, then vet wrapped the shit out of it and stuck bright pink duck tape that had been stuck together at the ends to make a big square, went over the top. Then the vet squeegied the horse dry while i cleaned all its feet with a hoof pick and then we let it go back into the paddock. I was drenched and covered in mud but i was very cool. Then they were going to take a quick break and go up and do typhone one of the elephants and said i was welcome to spend the rest of the day with them, but when we got back in my tour leader came and found me and said everyone was waiting for me to head back into chiang mai - super sad face, i wanted o stay and help with the elephants in the afternoon. But still appreciate them having me. The other girls in my group played in the river again and then made rice balls (the size of rock melons) and fed the older elephants in the pens behind our bungalow. Then we all jumped in the minivan and hrmeaded back to chiang mai where i was dropped at my fancy spa resort :p its very nice Nd quite fancy. The bed is amazing. Its Pricey for here but not super top end. After check in i emptied out my back pack and headed off into town to meet bianca. We met in the markets and had dinner and then we went through the markets and shopped. I brought way tok much stuff my back pack was bulging lol. I including two packets of temporary tattoos which i will put on later. After we shopped we got our feet eaten by fish, which was the weirdest feeling ever. The lady forgot about us so our 15mins turned into half an hour, our feet were soooo smooth and then we got a foot and leg massage. After we were all relaxed we said our goodnights and i jumped in a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Then i went crazy with the tattoos but i think they look really cool. I put a big wolf dream catcher on the outside of my left leg cause i want to see if i will like it getting my real dream catcher there. And all the little ones i put where i might get other smaller ones like a compass. I think they all look cool. I hope they do last at least a week. Then i had an awesome shower and crashed into my massive squishy, four poster, 7 pillowed, surrounded with mosquito net, queen bed and settled in for a sleep in.Read more