Bareback elephant riding

Today was awesome as Declan put it “because Elephants”.

The day started somewhat less awesomely with two grumpy boys. Our hotel is somewhere between a 1 and 2 star place and is pretty basic. The boys were cold last night and the showers were trickles of cold water this morning. The lack of pressure and heat was probably a blessing in disguise because the showers are also immediately above the toilet with no screen of any sort – basically the bathroom is a shower cubicle – so there’s no way for the first showering brother not to leave the whole bathroom a soaking mess. The boys did not take kindly to be teased about being spoilt.

Anyway, we drove down the mountains for about 30 minutes, on winding roads that were just this side of being scary as long as you didn’t think too much about the drop, and then met up with our local guide for a trek to the elephant sanctuary. We walked for a couple of hours through banana plantations, teak tree forests, and stands of bamboo until we reached a river and our destination – the Green Valley Elephant Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary was set up a couple of years ago by a vet and is determinedly doing the right thing by the elephants and the local people while providing a tourist experience. There are six elephants who have been saved from government labour in the logging industry; each has its own keeper and the keeper’s families live on site with amenities and a school provided. The number of visitors is regulated so the elephants don’t get stressed.

After the ubiquitous welcome tea we got to feed the elephants. They were lovely gentle creatures and were content to eat as much fruit and bamboo as we could give them. We started out rather hesitantly handing the food to the elephants so they could pick it up with their trunks but by the end were shouting ‘hi hi’ to signal the elephants to open wide so we could drop food directly into their mouths. Their mouths were the biggest surprise – seen head on they sort of open in four directions around a huge pink tongue and look just like something out of a horror science-fiction movie.

After feeding, it was time for bathing. We changed into local Shan pants, like cotton board shorts, and then walked up river to a lovely pool. We splashed the elephant to remove the dust and then rubbed it down with acacia bark as a soap. The elephant clearly loved the experience and sort of purred like a giant cat. She even trumpeted at one point much to all of our delight. The only sad thing about getting up close and personal with the elephant was the number of scars she sported from her logging days.

Then the kids got a treat which doesn’t usually happen, they got to ride the elephant bareback back down to the camp. Declan was in seventh heaven the whole time and Callum was pretty thrilled once he was back on safe ground and in no danger of falling. The only negative was that elephants have really thick spiky hairs which apparently thin cotton shorts do little to blunt.

In the late afternoon we drove up into the hills above Kelaw on a precipitous dirt road and then walked through an orange grove to a lookout point. The point has a small tea shop on it run by an Indian family who have also planted flowers all over the place. It has expansive views over the surrounding valleys and out to the haze-shrouded mountains. We spent a very pleasant hour-and-a-half watching the Sun going down while sipping tea and taking a ridiculous number of photos.

Which was lovely but the day was a huge success, because elephants.