Elephant Nature Park - Aug 15

Volunteers head out for poo collection

  Day 3

Starts and we are shunted around our tasks again - we have 3 groups - A, B and C. These are for morning duties, and in the afternoon we have different jobs

Today our group has first job of (elephant) kitchen. The menu changes each day - mainly depending on what sort of food is available!!! Today we have pumpkins and melons. These have to be washed first to remove any insecticides from the skin, before they are cut up by machete wielding people - some of our people are quite dangerous with the implements. Most are like lightning - never strike twice in the same place!!

Other volunteers head for the elephant kitchen -

Bananas await for preparation

Baskets for the washed pumpkins

For fun, one can cut the pumpkins

Bananas need to be sorted, with riper ones selected for peeling, for the older elephants who have difficulty in eating as they have no teeth.

Bananas to be peeled

When filled, baskets are taken around by human chain to the various spots where the elephants feed

A group taking the food baskets around

Pom is here to welcome us

The gift shop

A change - to washing melons

The elephants arrive for lunch

Feeding the family

Some elephants are impatient!!

Water sports - with elephants

Bath time - again

Water sports - with elephants

Stepanie is in charge of the dog shelter

Volunteers resting at the dog pound

We have a gift shop which is quite popular. Then back to the kitchen for melon washing and cutting.




We do have time to watch the feeding at 11am










After lunch it is bathing time again at 1pm - and back to the river for the elephants
and the volunteers and visitors!!


And again it is a perfect opportunity to splash others and also get wet!!! Take a waterproof camera!!

Spreading poo compost at the dog pound

The volunteers around the dog pound pool

After this it is back to work - and this time we are moving elephant poo compost to the dog shelter. Recently Chiang Mai suffered some serious flooding, resulting in many homes being destroyed and many people and animals affected. Lek was concerned about many dogs who were left behind when their families left their homes. Lek's people rescued several hundred dogs - many being reunited with their owners. Many however had no where to go, so Lek built a dog shelter for them opposite the elephant Park. Now there are over 200 dogs. But whilst they have shelter and water and are fed, there is no shade, so our job was to transfer elephant poo compost into piles around the dog runs, and then later return to plant trees into the poo piles.