The Elephants

Easy Rider

Easy Rider is not easy to work with as she is a big, young and confident female elephant that sometimes does not know her own strength! Her first mahout and her later owner were too busy to maintain her upkeep so the owner brought her to the sanctuary. It took a few months for the scarred and nervous elephant to visibly relax and to start behaving like a happy elephant again.

Easy has become good friends with Gee Nowl and they look out for each other and are never seen far apart.

Easy Rider can be recognised by her light, almost yellow eyes and her relatively short but stocky size. She is a true bull dozer elephant who likes uprooting trees and then scratching on them.

She really, really likes scratching

Gee Nowl

Gee Nowl was a logging elephants that escaped her mahout’s control one day and innocently destroyed a farm. The mahout could not afford to pay the compensation to the farmer and asked the project to pick up the bill and to allow her to stay at the project as her constant escapades were impoverishing him.

In 2013 Gee Nowl was able to permanently retire at the project and live out the remainder of her life in the forest.

Gee Nowl is our tallest female elephant and her skinny body is one that reminds us daily that elephants are wild animals and are not supposed to be worked, ridden or controlled in an unnatural way. When she first came to us she was frustrated and scared and over the years has relaxed and has become one of the most gentle and wonderful elephants that live with us here. To watch her graze and roam in the forest is a true pleasure.

She is also great friends with Easy Rider who looks out for Gee Nowl and constantly bosses her around. Easy is always making sure everything is in order when it comes to throwing mud, eating grass and munching on bamboo and her constant attention always puts a smile on Gee Nowls face.

Milot

Milot came from two villages where she used to carry tourists in one and haul wood in the other. She is blind in her right eye (you must always walk on her left) and covered in old scars that were previously abscesses. When Milot first arrived, she was very resilient and hard minded; scared of people, vehicles and other elephants. However she settled into the project and can now often be found quite close to our base camp.

Most of Milot’s problems stem from being overworked by her previous owners who would overload her with which ever goods or people they were tasked to carry. She would have to haul such things as wood, oil, tourists and rice and trek between villages and far into the local forest to earn an income.

Unfortunately the bruising caused by the overloading led to some serious elongated abscesses from her poorly fitted and overloaded basket and through the pain she started to become uncooperative. This meant in turn she was hit in increasing quantities as to drive her along.

She now prefers to spend most of her time looking for bamboo and is a true mud-artist; she first makes a mud-paste and then covers her entire body in it and then she likes to have a good scratch!

Moon

Moon has a very long history, one that represents how the Bunong people are really connected to their elephants.

The project was introduced to Moon when the project staff went to treat her at the request of her owner. The owner was very impressed and started to talk to the team about options for his elephant. Owned by a few of his family members and himself, he has cared for Moon his whole life. This meant she did various types of work, but mainly on the farm carrying the harvest and helping the family. She is really a true example of how the traditional Bunong ownership and relationship with their elephants can work. For the owner, being a ripe old age of around 60 years himself, however, the daily care of the elephant was getting too much.

After explaining the model of the project, the owner decided to bring his elephant here to see if SHE was happy.

A couple of months went by where the owner spent time at the project watching Moon slowly starting to interact with the other girls and he got happier and happier. Eventually the owner asked the project if she can stay. Moon now spends her days hanging out with Milot, creating the third family of elephants. 

Sambo

Sambo is Cambodia’s most famous elephant. For many years she was a permanent feature in the capital, Phnom Penh, giving rides to tourists. She was originally caught in the Aural mountains before the war and was the sole survivor of five elephants that her owner once caught, trained and worked. After the civil war finished she was brought to Phnom Penh to give rides to children and tourists and many Khmer often came to visit her and to feed her fruits.

Sambo is a wonderful old elephant and we are so happy that she is now at the project. The project is hugely grateful to her owner for retiring her to the elephant sanctuary and allowing her to once again become a real elephant.

Ruby

Little Miss Ruby is one of the smallest additions to the herd; not by age or personality by any means, but by her very cute small size. Coming from a very long logging past, Ruby’s life was a hard one. When her owners could not look after her anymore as they have no land and forest left, the project stepped in.

Ruby has joined the group of Ning Wan, Milot and Mae Nang – now dubbed the Fantastic Four. She is already showing amazing elephant behaviour again, going from strength to strength. Gone are the days when if anyone held up a stick, leaf or branch she cowered to the ground. She now walks around confidently and approaches people ever so inquisitively for a new found love of bananas.

She now lives happily at the elephant sanctuary, enjoying the kind of life that all elephants should be allowed to lead. Ruby settled in surprisingly quickly, learning natural elephant behaviour from the more experienced residents at the sanctuary. 

Ning Wan

Ning Wan is an elephant that represents the true love the Indigenous Bunong people in Mondulkiri have for their elephants.

Ning Wan is a happy, gentle elephant who is much beloved by all and she has wonderfully taken on protecting the very troubled elephant Mae Nang and shows some very strong matriarchal behavior. Together with Milot and Ruby,  they have their own little herd in Elephant Heaven.

Since coming to the project, Ning Wan has learned to trumpet and squeek as well as how to have a good mudbath and you can often hear her from far communicating with her friends.

Mae Nang

Mae Nang is one of the most troubled elephants to come to the project.  Her previous owners worked her tirelessly for years, logging and transporting goods.

After lengthy negotiations she finally came to the project in June 2011.  She shows signs of heavy overwork and is scared of anything new in her environment.  However she is slowly regaining her strength and is a much loved member of the "Heaven Gang".

Ning Wan and Ruby have kindly taken her into their little herd and are teaching her how to be an elephant again. Recently she has been starting to guard the group more, an impressive indication that she is ever on the mend.

Elephants are my Favourite Animal

This week in Cambodia we celebrated the Khmer New Year and therefore had the week off as most people use the entire week as an opportunity to be with their families and drink and party. I however decided to take that time to travel North East to the Province of Mondulkiri.  There is not a whole lot in Mondulkiri, however what drew me there was the fact that there is an Elephant Sanctuary, and working with Elephants has always been something I have wanted to do.  


Saturday 11- I booked the Elephant Project online and a part of the package was pick-up from the Phnom Penh Airport and accommodation at a Hostel the night before we were scheduled to leave so I decided to organize a pick up from the airport based on someone else's flights so that the company did not need to make multiple trips.  They told me someone was flying in at 3pm Saturday the 11th so I planned to be there for that time as well as it is only a short distance from my apartment.  Once I arrived however there was no one there with a sign so I decided to call them to make sure things were still in place as I had not heard from them that week to solidify the plans.  Good thing I called because the information of me meeting them there had not been relayed to them and so I needed to look for a sign with the other persons name on it.  They told me to look for a Joanne Shepherd sign at the arrivals gate.  While on the phone with them I must have spoken the name out loud because when I hung up this girl approached me and said she was Joanne Shepherd. Together we managed to find the guy from the Hostel to take us there.  So we hoped in the tuk tuk and off we went to the Hostel.  When we arrived another volunteer was already checked in, Nikki, and so we introduced ourselves and all made fast friends.  Joanne has never been to Phnom Penh before and since we were leaving for Mondulkiri tomorrow we decided to go for a walk around the town to catch some of the main sites.  We walked past the Monument and then past the palace and down River front before lastly seeing the Central Market.  By the time we reached the market it was dark so we tuk tukked back to the Hostel for our included dinner.   At dinner I learned that Nikki is a doctor from England and Joanne designs storefronts and is also from England.  After a while we were also joined by Jonathan a massage therapist doing PhD research on Elephants who will also be with us at the Project.  We did not stay up late as our departure was scheduled for 7am.

Sunday 12- We got an early start to the day and woke up around 6 to eat breakfast before the car arrived for 7.  Turns out there was another traveller also joining us which made us a group of 5 and only 4 seats in the car they sent over.  So after some confusion we finally had Nikki, Jonathan, and the newcomer Chris go in the first car while Jo and I waited for another car to arrive.  About twenty minutes later our car arrived and we hoped in only to stop three blocks away so our driver could have a snack and pick up a friend for the trip.  Because its a hired car service and they are driving us the five hours to Mondulkiri I guess he wanted a companion for the journey.  We then hit the road again only to stop 45 minutes later so the two gentlemen could have lunch leaving Jo and I extremely confused as neither of the men spoke English to explain what was happening.  To make up for it though the driver bought us each an iced tea on the house.  After lunch and back on the road I was no longer able to stay awake and slept most of the way there.  I finally woke up as we were speed car racing down a crazy windy road in the middle of a fires. As my eyes adjusted and my contacts regained their moisture enough for me to see I was shocked to see that it looked like it was snowing. Turns out it was thousands of white butterflies all over the place. The driver stopped in the next town at a hostel and told us we were here but it wasn't the right place so we went up the street to a restaurant and found the other three that left in the other car this morning so at least we were in the right place. The sanctuary people eventually showed up and took us to the camp where we got assigned our rooms and were given a brief low down on the project. I am in a room with Nikki the doctor from England and Sienna a girl in her gap year from New York State who's doing a total of twelve weeks here. Two other girls, Michaela and Indiana, are in the dorm next door to Nikki Sienna and myself, while Chris has a dorm to himself. Jo and Jonathan have private bungalows as well as a married couple, Lindsay and Jason, who also just arrived today. In total our group consists of 8 newcomers myself, Jo, Nikki, Jonathan, Chris, Linsey and Jason, and finally Michaela (Indianna and Sienna are not in our group because they were here last week.

 The Dining room

 Dining area

 Kitchen

 View from lounge

 Lounge

Monday 13- I didn't have the greatest sleep because I was listening to every possible noise outside thinking they were coming to attack me. It was super windy so every time the trees blew branches would land on our metal roof. And despite mosquito nets there were loud insects flying around. I woke up with the sun at 5:30 in the morning just as the cat came in for a snuggle. I got up and went straight to breakfast to enjoy crepes and some fresh fruit. We had to hike up a huge hill to meet our group leader for the start of our day. Our guides name was Chris and he is also from England (most of the people who work here are) and he took us into Heaven, the valley where we first met four of the sanctuaries elephants. We watched them being bathed and doing there morning eating. Near the end Ruby let us touch her. Then it was back to camp for lunch which consisted of a whole fried fish, it was so massive three of us had to split one piece. After lunch some people went off to either nap or rest for a bit but Linsey, Jason, Jo, Indiana, another Jo, and myself sat in the hammocks and talked. Next up for the day was another valley with two new elephants. We climbed the hill again and then hopped in the bed of the truck (the truck couldn’t make it up the hill with us in it). It was a bit bumpy but fun. Then it was a 25 minute journey down to the elephants. These Elephants, Easy Rider and Geneo were a lot friendlier and we spent more time up close to them just relaxing while they ate. Once back to camp we showered up for dinner and then spent the evening in the lounge room talking and playing spoons. Spoons wasn't competitive though because the same one person was so slow we were all guaranteed a spoon.

 First glimpse of an Elephant

 Loving touch

 Scratching on a tree

 Menang, Linguon, Ruby, and Pearl.  Ruby is smallest but likes to be the guardian of the others.  Menang is the Matriarch and decides where the heard will go next.

 Pearl, the only Elephant with tusks

 Ruby doesn't like being bathed so she just stands there

 Linguon gets a scratch from the tree

 Butt shot

 Butt shot take two

 Holding trunks

First touch

 up close

 After lunch now with Easy Rider and Geneo

 Their eyes hold so many wonders

 Group selfie

 Tuesday 14- This morning was our first work day. After breakfast we were scheduled to help do some weeding for one of their interns who is working towards researching which weeds disrupt the growth of their food supply. So we found a clearing and began to chop the long grass before beginning to hoe the area. There were ten of us working and the job went super fast with all of us working hard and sweating like banshees so we ended up finishing early and spending the rest of the morning in the hammocks. At lunch a huge group of tourists for the day showed up making it extra loud and crowded in the lounging areas so we again took root in the hammocks. For our evening work we just helped do odd jobs for Sambo, one of the elephants who used to be paraded around Phnom Penh and has now developed a huge lesion in her foot keeping her from joining the other elephants deeper in the forest as they constantly have to clean it with iodine. She's the most beautiful elephant almost red in color from the deep hues of the earth around her and she always seems to be smiling. She also was severely underfed in Phnom Penh so they have to monitor her size by measuring her. While observing Sambo the owner of the sanctuary Jack was with us talking more about how they acquired Sambo and the methods they use to maintain the entire Sanctuary. We again got finished early so went back to camp to shower and relax before dinner in the hammocks. Some of the new people from earlier were still around as they are staying the night so we hung out in the hammocks with them drinking beers. There were two from Holland and one Belgian. After dinner we played cards in the lounge with two other new people one from Abbotsford and another Belgian.

 Sambo having her foot cleaned

 Time to eat

Wednesday 15- Around 4am I woke up with a severe stomach ache. This was normal as I had been waking up the previous nights to use the washroom, however after having gone to the bathroom the pain did not subside and I ended up returning to the toilet four or five more times. It was the third time or so when I bumped into Indy who had been sick as well throwing up. By breakfast time I heard that four others had also become ill with the same thing. I think it's food poisoning but because not everyone is sick, only some of us, it's questionable. I had to skip this morning’s volunteer work, they built a fence for the pigs, but I got up to join the others after lunch. I still was not in the best shape but we weren't going far so I didn't want to miss out on the elephants. This time we went to see Moon and Milot. Milot is probably the most severely damaged looking as she is skinny beyond means with her spine is sticking out and her face is sunken in. I tried feeding her but she wouldn't take it. Once we got back to camp I wasn't feeling well and although I tried to make it to dinner I ended up just going straight to bed.

Sick but made it to Milot.  She reminded me of Nan, as I looked into her eyes I saw a life that had been well lived.

Thursday 16- This morning I woke up feeling fine, as though yesterday never even happened. Everyone else too who had been sick seemed back in normal spirits so it must have been a 24 hour thing. I was even able to stomach a little breakfast before we set out to do our morning volunteer work. We headed back down to the clearing where Moon and Milot were yesterday to clean up the banana tree parts to avoid bugs and mould growing in their eating area. We then had to fill buckets with the remnants and transport them part way back up the path to the nursery where it is then turned into compost. After working in the heat I was starting to feel ill again so by time lunch came around I wasn't able to eat anything other than some rice and watermelon. I tried having a lay down to help the nausea but by time we were called back to set off for the elephants I still was not well but decided to go anyway. I was a little slow going but I made it to Easy Rider and Geneo and we watched them bathe and then did their vet checks.  We got super muddy from checking them as they had just finished they mud bath. Once back at camp we showered and then relaxed on the hammocks until dinner. I was right starved from barely eating the day before and having a barely existent lunch so when the bell rang I was an eager beaver to eat. We had tofu amok which was not my favorite so I filled up on rice and fruit and some green veggie. After dinner it was back to the original 8 of us so we just talked. Tomorrow is our last day then we get taken into town before I leave on Saturday.

 Splish Splash I was taking a bath...

 Helping run a vet check and checking her belly for any lesions

All muddy

Friday 17- Our last day has sadly arrived and so we were given a day. I packed up my things and stripped my bed then joined the others for dinner. Out of the 8 of us 4 are leaving so its bittersweet. We had breakfast then had to hike up the infamous hill to prepare for the day. The day visitors did not show up today so we got a nice surprise by having all of the guides come with us for the morning activities. We went back into Heaven valley and did vet checks on Niguon, Menang, Ruby, and Pearl and just chilled watching them for the rest of the morning. Then it was back to camp for lunch before heading to a waterfall in the afternoon to swim. The waterfall was amazing!! We managed to encourage everyone in and it was just fun to relax and not be sweating all the time. We then made the trek back to grab our things and head into town for the evening. Helen the head of the sanctuary is leaving so we had a party at the town bar to celebrate and wish her goodbye. We were all so exhausted though we didn't stay long. I did manage to extend my stay though as the others peer pressured me into it... That and they are going to rent moto's tomorrow and go to a waterfall so I definitely wanted to do that.

 Last day, and vet checking Menang

 Selfie with Ruby

Sacred Waterfall, we all had to swim in our clothes as the Banong people are very conservative

Saturday 18- So even though we could sleep in today we were all up and about early as per routine, so we all went back to the bar from yesterday to have breakfast. After breakfast we looked into renting moto's but after trying to test-drive them and failing miserably we chose not to go that route. Instead it was safer to rent a car and a driver for the day to take us up to the waterfall. So six of us Jo, Indy, Nikki, Chris, Linsey, and myself piled into the car while Jason and Jonathan each had their own moto and followed behind. So glad we didn't moto as the roads were so dusty and the boys got covered in what they call Cambodian snow, dark red dirt. Once at the waterfall we signed up to do the zip lining then went to wait for our turn by the falls. There were too many people at the top level of the falls so we went down to the bottom level to have some more space and get a better view. To get down we had to endure a rickety ladder, which was ready to tumble at any second. Time flew by and we headed up for our zip lining adventures. Jason and Jonathan had never zip lined before but took to it quickly! Indy was hilarious the whole time yelling out and taking videos that the guide asked her to be in their advertisement video! There were six zip lines and one of them took us right over the falls. It was so nerve racking that I forgot to take in the view! By time we were done ziplining it was already 4pm and time to head back into town so we piled back in the car and took off. Unfortunately our driver was reluctant to wait for the boys to follow on moto's so by time we finally got him to pull over and wait we were a ways down the road and could not see them at all.  A while after pulling to the side of the road Jason came into view but Jonathan was nowhere to be seen. Apparently Jonathan’s moto would not start and so Jason and our car driver headed back to help while we waited with the car on the side of the road. Once everything was sorted we got back into the car and made it into town only to go straight for pizza as we skipped lunch and were starving. Unfortunately the pizza place could only cook one pizza at a time so it ended up taking an hour and a half to get all of our pizzas out. I was not pleased with the slowness but the pizza was delicious and worth it overall. We made a quick stop at the hostel to shower up and then we all met back up at the bar for some drinks and games. We were enjoying the night so much that we ended up staying up right until my bus the next morning at 7am!

Bou Sra Waterfall 

 Selfie with Jo and Linsey

 crowded

 Ready to zipline

 View from above

 83 meters up

 Tandum jump

 Linsey and Jason tandum zipline

We did it!!  Gona miss this fine group of people!

Sunday 19- I made it onto my bus and immediately put my headphones in so I could catch some shut-eye. The bus was quite rough making it hard to sleep but I did get enough rest to make it through the 5 hour journey. I am now home safe and sound and am sad that the week is over as it was one of the best weeks here in Cambodia so far. I've met the most amazing group of people who I can only hope will be life long friends and I've experienced something so remarkable by working so closely with an animal that has endured such traumatic pain from the human hand and yet still remains gentle, compassionate, and strong.

Hoppy Easter Everyone

Although it is Easter back home, here it is just another day. There are no chocolates waiting in hiding, or eggs to be painted.  The kids didn't even know what Easter was!  I would have spent more time on Easter except again I am not allowed making any religious connections so it is hard to explain a giant bunny pooping chocolate eggs around town to a bunch of kids who literally ask every question imaginable.  So instead I left it until today, Easter Monday, and we simply went about the day...dressed in bunny ears and hopping to and fro.  Hoppy Easter Everyone!  Have an extra chocolate dropping for me!

 Floppy eared bunnies

group shot

hop like a bunny

My TA's and I

 ...and a massive storm to finish it off