First Day at Camp

For me to wake up voluntarily before 6a.m means I must be excited about something…elephants!

Before heading to the camp, we were taken to a local café for breakfast. The Thai lady who ran it had lived in Germany for a few years and it seemed very surreal to be speaking (very basic) German in Thailand while eating a very English (sausages, eggs, toast and tea) breakfast!

As we got to the camp the poorness of the area suddenly hit me. There was rubbish everywhere, the river was filthy and everything seemed to be falling down. Nevertheless we were greeted at camp with huge smiles and they seemed genuinely pleased to see us.
First we had a welcome ceremony complete with a pig’s head, dead chicken, whiskey and an assortment of local flowers. This was to ask for a good week for everyone and I was touched when the prayer required us all to be touching each other. Instead of just bowing our heads we had to be physically touching each other as we were all asking for the same thing.

So here she is! Dern Pen which means full moon in Thai. She is an older elephant and is so sweet which is why Pin calls her the grandma of the group. I wondered why on earth she had a purple nose but when the doctor visited later I found out it was just an iodine solution to stop infection.

The Mahout in charge of Dern Pen is Picchan. He is very quiet, shy and speaks little English but we found some common ground when I found out he loves Chelsea FC. Our main duties today included cleaning the camp, feeding and bathing the elephants, and learning to command them using Thai words.

Everything went well today but Picchan tells me I need to shout more and not be so nervous. The good thing is that elephants can be bribed so easily with the promise of fruit so if she doesn’t feel like listening I just show her a banana and she follows me anyway. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it is to just be so close to these beautiful creatures – they are wonderful.
After that we just had time to check out the local beach, enjoy noodles for dinner and visit the local supermarket before bed.