elephant | Stowaway Travel Writing & Editorial Services

I didn’t spend much time sightseeing in Chiang Rai. I’d just come from a busy couple weeks in Chiang Mai and the Elephant Nature Park, so I visited the White Temple but otherwise relaxed in this small town in the northeast corner of Thailand.

Night market eats

A full food court at 10pm

I’d met another solo traveler at the bus stop in Chiang Mai, and together we found the hostel I’d booked and hiked the four flights of stairs to the dorm rooms on the roof. Julie, from Belgium, spoke more English than I speak French, but not much, so our conversations were a hodgepodge of our native grammars and what little vocabulary we could remember from the other’s mother tongue.

I did not eat these

Or these

We stumbled our way through a conversation at the night market and then gave up and just enjoyed the end of the lip-synching performance taking place on the stage at the end of the enormous food courtyard.

A gown and a cape–winning

Then we wandered among the various tables with their homemade crafts and mass-produced goods, and of course bought at least one souvenir each.

Tempting

NOT tempting. What the hell?

On my last night in town, I saw a man wandering through town with a small elephant; he led the elephant up to tourists, who could give money to feed the elephant or to climb up and perch atop the elephant. I steered clear of this man and his captive elephant; I knew from my time at the ENP that he likely had a nail hidden in the palm of his hand to use as a goad behind the elephant’s ear to get it to go where he wanted it to.

Sad sight

Happily, my last image of Chiang Rai was a nicer one. As I waited for my bus out of town, I saw a couple leaning into each other, sharing one set of headphones between them as they waited for their own bus. It was sweet.

True love means sharing an iPod?

Dearest fellow travelers, I’m spending the week in the jungle, living with elephants. I’m volunteering as a general helper at the Elephant Nature Park, a rescue and conservation reserve located an hour’s drive outside of Chiang Mai. I’ll be feeding them, bathing them, and scooping up their poop. I’ll be doing various odd jobs like cutting down corn with a machete and laying in foundations for new buildings. I know, me, with the animals and the physical labor. Who’d have thought?

At the Elephant Nature Park

I am very nervous about being able to keep up and be useful, especially after reading this account of how hard the work is. But I think it’s time to do something tangibly helpful on this trip (it’ll be my first volunteer gig), and it also seems sort of magical, to live in close quarters with these gentle giants. (Not so gentle if you annoy them, as my friend Mindy is quick to point out–no matter how domesticated they may be, they are at heart wild animals, so tread carefully.)

My friend Hannah visited me here in Chiang Mai last week, and she went to the ENP on a day trip. She said it was amazing, beautiful, etc., and while I expect it will be quite different to be literally in the muck, I also expect the close, constant contact might make the whole experience even more meaningful.

Those of you who have donated, thank you so much! You may remember that this is one of the things listed on the Fund This Stowaway page. (Apparently it costs a quarter of a million dollars to feed the elephants each year, never mind all the other costs, so volunteers pay $400 for their week’s stay, and that includes food and lodging). I’m happy to say that your generosity has almost entirely funded this week; I’ll be thinking of you all as I hand-feed the elephants and bathe them in the river.

Just because I’m leaving town to sleep on a wooden deck with generator-powered electricity, don’t think that’ll make me abandon my New Year’s resolution only two months into the year; I’ve set up posts for the rest of the week so you can catch up a bit on my adventures in New Zealand. I won’t have access to Internet (unlike the rest of my trip, when I haven’t been away from it for more than two days at a time), so apologies if the system holds up some of your comments for approval. I’ll get it all sorted as soon as I’m back to Chiang Mai on March 3rd.

Have a wonderful week!

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