Saturday 26 March 2016

Using Elephants for Human Benefit - Is There a Line?

The very first tales of human history, oral and written, describe animals being used for human benefit. Durga rides on the back of a lion, Mary and Joseph ride a donkey to Bethlehem, Indian kings observe war on elephants, Inuits strap huskies into sleds to travel. Literal or metaphorical, we are taught through through these kinds of stories that humans have the ability to use animals to make our lives easier and better. Adding this to the belief that humans are the most intelligent and powerful animals on the planet, it seems a natural step of convenience and resourcefulness: to discover the potential usefulness of surrounding organisms and to use them to personal advantage.

Surrounded by relief carvings of war elephants, majestic animals carrying courageous warriors into the battlefield with the best vantage point possible, Angkor Wat is a perfect monument of animal and man working together to victory. Throughout Asia there are festivals which dress elephants in glorious lights and costumes, painting them beautifully so they can be admired and revered with awe by the millions of spectators who turn out to watch them pass. In China, millions of people gape at their skill and balance to be able to lift their entire form into a headstand, engulfed by the carnival atmosphere of circus lights and sounds for an incredible evening of entertainment and wonder. People pay eye watering amounts of money to have a painting by an elephant as a document of their accuracy and socio-emotional intelligence to appreciate art and colours. Paying to see these spectacular sights supports the elephants, keeps them fed, celebrates their intelligence, and ensures generations after us can see these incredible animals doing incredible things.

I visited India in 2013 (did I mention...?) and at the very end of my trip I adventured over to Jaipur to see the famous Amber Fort. The monument is incredible: a huge mass of orange stone with floating gardens and one straight slope leading directly into the Fort accessible only (seemingly) by elephant. Those huge ellies were so happy! They had leftover paint on their trunks from a festival a week or so before, they were draped in colourful cloth to protect them from the sun, and they walked with the baskets on their backs so gracefully and with such ease. They weren't swaying, they weren't stomping - they seemed perfectly content with their tasks. I'm only little, as was my basket partner, so there's no way we made any difference to the elephant - it's like wearing a backpack to a human! The ride was very short, 5-10 minutes, and the elephants all walked in a long line so they're with their herds and their friends all day long. To be honest, the ride was lumpy and uncomfortable, but I rode on the back of an elephant and that's awesome right! It's such a must-do experience, and that's great!

3 years later I paid attention when somebody showed me more.

Meeting the hero I didn't know I had

Hidden under an oversized purple flannel shirt and cowboy hat strides a tiny Thai woman, wellies up to her knees and long black plait swinging from shoulder to shoulder as she makes her way through rich green fields. Suddenly she stops dead in her tracks and disappears from view altogether. "Watch this," comes a voice from the grass, her eyes sparkling above her incredible cheekbones with a mischievous smile. A heavy second passes and the wavelength is tapped. Trunks and tails scrape the clouds as sturdy feet silently carry round, grey bodies towards the intensely relaxed, cross legged figure in front of me, racing forwards with absolutely no indication of slowing down.

Small but mighty
 
Nope not slowing at all


I first learnt about Lek Chailert through National Geographic when my thumb struck a glossy photo of a woman coiled up inside an elephant trunk. "Ooh, nice photos... Hm, that's sad," goes the thought process, "that's a needle in a haystack job" - and on went my day. Refugee crises, famines, despot dictators running countries into the ground, and I had a clarinet lesson in 15 minutes and I still couldn't find my best reeds. Up I jumped and down the mag fell, taking with it the weight of the world's problems and all thoughts of the other side of the mountain.

Mahouting with Medo

Eyes widened. Shivers down spine. 
"Hey guys, Pom wants to talk to you tonight"
SBJ. 

Pom is the manager at ENP. Pom carries an aura of badass. Pom is the lady you move out of the way of before you even know who she is. Pom is the lady who exudes knowledge and experience. Pom is the lady who silences 400 howling dogs with one bark of her own. 

Walking up to the exclusive nursery table, AKA Fort Pom, I became painfully aware of the multiple types of poo on my shirt that day: the standard coating of elephant poop had been peppered with a little bit of dog poop, with limited edition highlighting courtesy of a remarkably productive passing bird. I scrunched my curly hair in an attempt to look slightly better for her, but well aware that I was quite literally just rolling a turd in glitter. In this state I walked towards the small figure dressed in her classic black t-shirt and SnapBack with 'POM' emblazoned on the back, hunched over Mr Mustachio and Dr EvilFluff. Pom is like a Russian babushka doll: such a gentle and kind animal carer contained within a badass lady who is juggling eighteen billion plates simultaneously in order to get shit done.

"Lek has said you may go into the jungle and shadow the mahouts with some of the elephants. You will go in pairs and alternate groups. Look at the relationships, see how the elephants interact, learn their behaviours. Collect radios tomorrow."

This is a huge deal. Huge.

Puppy Love at ENP

Those who knew me before this trip will know that I've got a general tolerance for dogs but I've never been a full on ERRRRRRMAGHERD-WOOSE-A-WOOD-WURL person. I like the idea of dogs and I've always been around them and know that they are inevitably part of my life, and I love the idea of snuggling and playing, but there's always so much shedding and grease and slobber and considerations and poo. Similar to my ideas on children.

The day before I arrived at ENP I refreshed my knowledge of the park, and had forgotten (somehow) that they also accommodate over 400 dogs! Much of their rescue efforts occurred during the terrible 2011 floods in Thailand - so many villages had to be evacuated of humans that they were forced to leave the dogs behind. The ENP team at the time took inflatable dinghys and rescued as many as they could take, bringing them home to the park for them to roam in big runs and receive the medical treatment and love so many of them desperately needed. More recently the ENP generosity and love itself is becoming abused, with owners who are fed up of their animals just dumping them at the gates of the park.Thailand has a terrible reputation for dog cruelty just because they are not highly regarded at all. Much like in England we look at rats and don't think twice about putting down pest poison for them, so too are dogs widely considered in Thailand. I'm not going to preach about the pros and cons of cultural relativity with regard to the respect awarded to and placing of different animals in different societies (although I would love to do research on that), so let's just settle on the fact that for some of the dogs Thailand doesn't want, ENP provides a home with the hope that the dogs will find their forever homes with adoptive families throughout the world.

Elephant special food and care

At ENP we show love in a huge number of ways, but we go full scale Jewish grandmother when it comes to showing love through food. The majority of our ellies are happy destroying corn stalks, grazing the park's grass, having a cheeky watermelon basket and reaching up into the canopy to break branches for the best leaves, but some of them can't.


Om nom nom banana rice balls

Tong Kham and Yai Bua have each faced years of malnutrition and abuse, and came to us in a state of starvation and sickness: both needed to gain 300kgs from their arrival weight, and their health was truly critical. For these situations we prepare rice balls: sticky white rice, salt, and nutrient pellets, all mushed together with tamarind and yellow bananas to make it taste nazz. Each ellie will get a different number of servings throughout the day depending on how much weight they need to gain or how well they take to the rice balls, and their progress is monitored to see how long they'll need these yummy grubs for.

They think it's tasty...


Elephant Invasion!

Do de do de doo, shredding some corn... poot te poot te poo, shredding more corn... Do de do de doo, bagging some corn... Poot te poot de poo, carrying some corn... Do de do de doo...
HOLY MOTHER OF MOLY THERE'S AN ELEPHANT IN THE KITCHEN.


Now what should have gone through my mind next should have been: "there's an elephant who has broken into the kitchen looking for extra food. You are carrying a bag of food. You are heading towards the elephant. You should move the food and yourself out of the nose and eye range of the elephant." 

What actually went through my mind was: "COOOOOOOOOOOL." 

Dani was really going for it, that gal. The human kitchen staff came rushing out to move their motorbikes out of her way, just in time as Dani reached up to the nearby tree and pulled down entire branches exactly where the bikes had been moments earlier as she selected the finest leaves for consumption. She used her trunk to expertly reach for the baskets of rice balls, salads, and watermelons all being prepared for the morning feeding rounds and all of which had been hastily pulled away out of her reach after her first few trunk dives had destroyed the perfectly formed batch of rice for Bou Loi. I wondered why she hadn't put her legs up yet, she could definitely climb onto the platform... 

Elephant enrichment

One of my favourite things about elephants is how hilariously destructive they are. What super precious and protected 800 year old tree? OH you mean my post mud-spray scratching post. NBD. Nope, I haven't seen your brand new motorbike, but let me show you my super awesome nail file - it's got flames up the side!


Ellies are renowned for being intensely intelligent animals. Their social intelligence enables them to remember intricate social ties between herds, recall exact locations of the burials of their relatives, and to recognise the faces of elephants they once bonded with and then were separated from for huge stretches of time. Their physical intelligence matches this, with exceptional fine motor skills which enable them to use their trunks with such dexterity that they can peel an ear of corn one leaf at a time! The very tip of their trunk has so many nerves it's hyper sensitive to touch, allowing elephants to pick up a single thin twig, break it down to ideal size, and then use it to scratch their eyelids with pin point precision and total control. Medo was an absolute boss at this - I'm pretty sure if that stick were an eyeliner pencil she'd put us all to cateye shame. For such a huge animal, it was such a shock to me to see such delicate movements!

Elephant Nature Park: Week Two

Following my incredible first week at ENP I moved onto the second week volunteer programme which was a lot more intense and closer with individual elephants than the first week. 

Week One was a brilliant introduction to ENP and the truly incredible work Lek and her entire team at the park are doing, giving me a taste of how everything clicks together and why this work is so important. Week Two, however, was an incredible experience for being so close to individual elephants, getting a lot more responsibility, and being able to get to know the inside workings of the park a little more.

Ruling the Cinema Spot with my tankard of tea


For the first few days I had an absolutely invaluable opportunity to shadow mahouts with their elephants in the jungle sections of the park which really opened my eyes to the social bonds and communication between elephants. I had never seen such free interaction between ellies and it was so beautiful to be able to observe them enjoying their natural habitat and becoming elephants again, rather than the same environment being their prison and being a slave within it. Read about these trips here!
Medo doing her thang


Elephant Nature Park: Week One

I felt at home as soon as I arrived at the Elephant Nature Park office in Chiang Mai. I knew it was going to be an amazing experience by the first 5 things I encountered through the door:
  1. Beautifully helpful, cheerful, and happy staff helping me through check in and registration
  2. Free T-shirts (1 for each week you're volunteering)
  3. The best banana muffins I've had in a long time which perfectly served my Hobbit-travelling-style food requirements for second breakfast (especially after holding my map upside down when booking my hostel, resulting in an hour long trek across Chiang Mai at 5.30AM on Day 1...)
  4. Free water bottles and over the shoulder HOLDERS. I kid you not, this is the best piece of kit I've obtained throughout 3 months of backpacking, and I am going home to make my millions by crocheting similar contraptions ready for the wild demand when Cambridge receives its annual quota of 3 days of summer. 
  5. Similarly bleary-eyed volunteers from all over the world who didn't look at me weirdly when I immediately dove into the pile of banana muffins and joined in with my overtired excitement about the bottle holders
3 muffins (ok yes, 5 in the office and 2 for the road don't judge me they were so good and there were lots of them, I was basically just making everyone else feel comfortable enough to dive in too) and 2 cups of tea later I rolled into a minibus and the dream was beginning: I was on my way to Elephant Nature Park for 2 weeks of volunteering with my favourite animals! 

This girl is so much more elegant than I am. Just look at that leg lead.

Saturday 19 March 2016

Return to Thailand: Not So Settling in Chiang Mai

Oigch. That was a Grr of an arrival. Miscommunications with the hostel resulted in my totally confirmed and definitely going to be there shuttle definitely not being there and me being totally shattered and drained after an emotional goodbye with my super awesome travel partner and boyfriend in Cambodia having to figure out how to get from A to B. I hadn't planned anything because my shuttle had been totally confirmed. It was dark, I was tired, I had no plans, and I'm scared of the dark when I'm in a new foreign place and I have no plans.

I booked an 8.0 hostel, but as soon as I laid down on my bed I knew it was going to be a terrible night. I was exhausted, it was too late to change hostel, and so I laid on my back on a mattress which appeared to genuinely be a wooden palette wrapped in styrofoam with a sheet on top. 8.0? GTFO. At 3am I was on the brink of tears as the exhaustion and frustration and pain all came to a head: I had chosen as good a place as I could, and it was still mightily shit. I climbed down from my bunk and laid on the decidedly more comfortable floor, finally drifting off to sleep. 

This is one of the best pieces of art I've ever seen, I love it

The next day I fell into my classic pattern of solo travelling: fill all the time and space which has recently been filled by companions with stuff. 11 hours of walking every street in Chiang Mai old city, exploring every temple and every market stall possible, and I was absolutely wiped out. So much so that my face genuinely caused the receptionist to ask if I was okay and whether I needed help. 

Beautifully colourful art in the markets


Fun fact: Chiang Mai is home to a lot of female-only prisons, and the city has a huge variety of prisoner-run community outreach and integration programmes including cafes, massage, restaurants, and shops. Pretty cool. 

Strange fact: walking through Chiang Mai on Valentine's Day meant I accidentally walked through a match-making festival! Couples came to be told whether they were compatible enough for a successful marriage and singletons came from all over to be blessed for better luck in love. Interesting stuff.

Shopping for love in a temple car park

That night I stole an empty low bunk in the dorm which had an actual mattress and as I sank into it I let it all wash over me. I had had a great time exploring the temples and markets, I had loved seeing the artwork paving the streets, but I was just exhausted. I couldn't wait for the prospect of staying in one place for 2 weeks. Putting my bag down and leaving it there for 2 whole weeks! Unpacking my things and not rushing to re-pack them all for the next day, taking my trainers out and not instantly reshuffling my boots to fill their gap... Most of all, I was so looking forward to seeing the same people for an entire block of time. Hostels are great for socialising and meeting new people, but everybody is on their own path and all you do in most situations is to cross paths as you both continue your trajectories. You might be in the bunk below a potential best friend, but if you're sick or tired that night and you don't feel like striking up conversation to find out, then that's the opportunity gone. To be in the same place with the same people doing the same project for the same fundamental reason: now that was a great thing to look forward to! 

Chiang Mai: where the streets are paved with art


Bring it on, Elephant Nature Park. 

Getting into the elephant mood

Wednesday 16 March 2016

My favourite butterfly from Borneo

Finally had technology to begin getting my photos from my proper camera to my cloud so I can access my nicer photos!

Monday 7 March 2016

S-21 and the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh

Graphic.

I stumbled across the Khmer Rouge when I was reading one of my forensic anthropology textbooks. I studied Modern History for 7 years - how had this never hit my radar before?! Mao's China, The Cold War, even the development of the World Wide Web, but an organised national genocide in South East Asia? Nothing. The Vietnam War was in our textbooks but never taught, and I was the only one in my class to get far enough through the read about it. Rwandan genocide? Che Guevara? Mexican drug cartels? Nope, but hey, did you know that Gerald Ford was the 38th US president and has 4 children? Wow that changes my outlook on the world.

Education, however, is difficult. As in Rwanda, Cambodia hasn't had an opportunity to be angry, mourn, or heal these events. There has been no recovery time because subsistence farmers cannot afford to take a moral stand against the neighbour who killed half their family: when you depend on the food you farm, you can't stop farming because you don't want to share the field with certain people. So then an impossibly horrible situation occurs whereby victims are forced to stand alongside their abusers and just get on. Tutsi working alongside Hutu, Khmer living alongside Khmer Rouge. It creates a suppressed anger and resentment which bubbles under he surface, locked down by a glass floor of silence: silence because it's too painful to remember, too fresh to uncover, too dangerous to talk. 

It is difficult to get a personal understanding of the Khmer Rouge because it is never, ever spoken about in Khmer society. Everybody in Cambodia was affected: families, friends, even the base people (countryside families who had never been involved in the cities) suffered from rationing and punishments even though they were considered the aspirational type of Khmer. The scars are obvious: the countryside is riddled with unmapped landmines, littered with killing fields, and blanketed in silence. The only way to learn when visiting, therefore, is to venture to the prisons and killing fields which have been memorialised for education. These are exceptional sites.

It was a bright, sunny Tuesday when I peeled myself off the rubber seats in the back of the Tuk Tuk and walked into a beautiful green courtyard. Trees lined every side, children's play bars stood at the sides of the bright green lawn, and white frangipani flowers twizzled delicately as the light breeze lifted them from their branches and carried them floating to the pavement. I sat on a wooden bench and plugged in my earphones, watching birds fly past the light yellow buildings around me and began my harrowing journey through the history of the Khmer Rouge.

Two Weeks in Cambodia - The one where I'm not a Larry!!

As with all of my countries, I had a hit list of what I wanted to do in Cambodia (Angkor Wat and genocide learning) and the rest was all up for grabs. The second week was fixed, as my partner in crime was flying out for a super awesome week in Siem Reap full of temples and celebrations and hanging out by pools together, so that left me with the first week of February to kick around in Cambodia by myself.

First up was a 7 hour bus trip to Phnom Penh filled, as ever, with the blended harmonies of Cambodian Karaoke on the TV, a man hocking and spitting to the left of me, and a woman violently vomiting to the right. Delightful. Spent the first hour becoming Kirstie the mozzie slayer, ruthlessly Jackie Chan catching and crushing mozzies with my bare hands like my brother-in-law taught me. Life skills. 




Fun fact: the dengue carrying mosquitoes are quite easy to see, as their backs have white stripes. Handy. 
Gross fact: when you kill a mosquito which has just fed, you get a smear of blood everywhere which is probably not yours. Nazz.

Whilst a night bus would be economically ideal (save a night of accommodation and half a day of exploration time!), the reputation for night buses is truly atrocious. Accidents are often not recorded, being chalked up to 'hitting a fallen log' or 'pot holes', security is terrible with reports of random extra passengers being allowed on to sit in foot wells and pathways so the drivers can get more money, and there have been numerous horror stories of sexual harassment and molestations with solo female backpackers. All in all, then, that'd be a hell to the no.

NGO Food in Cambodia

There are so many restaurants with NGO projects in Cambodia - here are some of the ones I tried and really loved.

Daughters of Cambodia
Right on the riverfront of Phnom Penh with a gorgeous balcony and craft shop below, Daughters is a great place for lunch or a people-watching snack! Learn about the work Daughters does to bring women out of sex trafficking and help them to develop skills to transform their lives, such as cooking, craft, hospitality, and more. Try any of the smoothies and you'll just fall in love with the place - banoffee is my favourite! 

 

Daughters of Cambodia, Phnom Penh

When I was 8 year old, my primary school best friend moved from sleepy Ickleton to bustling Singapore. I remember being so devastated that she'd be leaving - who would I walk around the football pitch and chat with at break time now? - and really not understanding where she was going or why. Mum got out the big atlas to show me where Singapore was, and later Phnom Penh when she moved again to Cambodia, but I still didn't understand the reason why I was walking around the pitch by myself.

12 years and the glorious Internet later, I saw a Facebook post by my friend which I didn't really get. She was wishing her Mum a happy Mother's Day, saying she was sad to not be with her but she understood that sharing her Mum with all the daughters of Cambodia was so important, and she was so proud of the work her Mum was doing. It was dissertation season so my mind skipped over the bits I didn't understand (story of 2/3 years of my degree) and I kept scrolling down my news feed, knocking back my standard cup of tea and handful of chocolate raisins. Bag of chocolate raisins. Fine yes it was a pint of milk and two bags of chocolate raisins they're one of your five a day can we move on now please and thanking you. 

Sex trafficking - Eastern Europe and South East Asia. That association has been in the back of my mind for a fair while. The media feeds us statistics, we feel bad that these things happen, and then it's back to the priority of making colour coded sticky notes for my exam revision because visual learning is a thing and I'm definitely not just procrastinating and making things look nicer. One article I do remember clearly, though, was a study using a computer generated image of a very young girl to lure people looking at her images and talking to her into actually talking to a team of police agents working on the huge operation. They modelled the girl to have very juvenile features based on those of young Cambodian girls, because Cambodians are apparently one of the most sought after people in the trade. The article went on about how successful the sting had been, but something clunked in the back of my mind. She was so little.

Sandan Restaurant, Sihanoukville

I've written a fair amount about NGO work in Cambodia, and this is another one which is worth a special mention. Similar to Daughters of Cambodia in Phnom Pehn, Sandan works to give its students a better life. Rather than escaping the sex trade, however, Sandan helps the homeless and at risk population of Sihanoukville by accepting them into their programmes and training them as chefs and front of house in their ever popular, successful, and high quality restaurant. The students get accommodation, income, and training, and we get a great meal. Win win! 

If Sandan were in London, paparazzi would buy apartments across the street. It's a glamorous place with crisp, white tablecloths, dazzlingly shiny wine glasses, and a gorgeously relaxed yet special ambiance. I went with two girls I met in my hostel and had the best meal of my travels! We were shown to our table, given wine and food menus, and made to feel like super smooth VIPs.