Volunteering for the elephants
If you want to see the ‘real’ Thailand, consider doing an ‘elephant’ amount of good while you’re there.
Taupo¯ massage therapist Emma Scott recently spent a week volunteering at a park for rescued elephants near Chiang Mai.
The 280-hectare Elephant Nature Park provides a safe haven for 88 elephants that have been freed from a life of hard labour; a life of dragging logs with chains or performing tricks for tourists out of fear of a whip.
Scott had come across a ‘‘wash an elephant’’ experience when travelling several years ago.
‘‘My ‘experience’ was not at all what I had wanted and ended in tears when I saw the elephants being ridden. They looked incredibly tired, sad and broken. They were being hit or threatened with what I now know to be an Ankusha.
‘‘It has concerned me ever since. I researched ethical elephant parks in Thailand, and found the Elephant Nature Park.’’
Getting out of bed in the morning had never been so easy, Scott said.
‘‘Breakfast was at 7am and at 8.30 we’d meet the Thai team leader, who would spend the day with us on our jobs.’’
Working in a team of 15, Scott would spend six hours a day cleaning the park, in exchange for meals and accommodation.
‘‘We had to do weeding and picking up elephant poo.
‘‘The elephants eat big cornstalks and we would tidy away whatever’s left over,’’ she said.
Volunteers would receive deliveries of fruit and vegetables for the elephants.
‘‘One day, 4-tonnes of watermelon arrived. Then another two big trucks arrived, full of bananas,’’ she said.
Scott would see elephants throughout the ‘‘work day’’ too.
‘‘It was so nice to see the elephants wandering around in the morning and swimming in the river – being as elephant as they could be in their environment,’’ she said.
Each evening, volunteers would socialise and take part in activities organised by the local Thai community.
The seven-day experience cost about NZ$650, including accommodation.
‘‘I couldn’t recommend it more highly to people,’’ Scott said.
‘‘I’ll never forget my 50th birthday present – this was unbelievable.’’