Elephant Camps and Hill Tribes

 

ELEPHANT CAMP 

This morning was quite thrilling because we were able to visit an elephant camp and take a ride through the rivers and woods.  The entry into the water was quite steep and it was a bit scary at first but after about ten minutes it actually felt quite natural to be on top of these amazing and intelligent animals.  We trod through the waters and paths for about forty five minutes.  Along the way there was a few elephant “drive-in’s” where you could buy sugar cane and bananas for your elephant for about 20 baht.  

At the elephant camp, there was a brief elephant show in which they kicked soccer balls into a goal, shot a basket and painted some really impressive paintings.  It blew me away that an elephant could paint a picture of a tree or even more astoundingly, a painting of a tree and the back of an elephant.

Next we went on a traditional bamboo raft trip down the river, encountering a few mild rapids.  We had a great time interacting with our boatmen and looking at the villages along the banks where some of the “Mahout” (elephant  handlers lived with their families).  The Mahouts are very important because they will be with that one elephant for their lives.  Elephants are animals that have very tight social networks not only with other elephants but with humans as well.  

One hundred years ago there were about 20,000 elephants in Thailand.  Today there are about 4500 which are all protected animals who no longer life in the open jungle.  When an elephant is born in Thailand,  it gets a baby elephant birth certificate in which it’s picture, name and the DNA of itself, mother and father are noted. 

HILL TRIBE VILLAGE

Our next adventure entailed driving for a short while and then we loaded into the back of an open air truck with bench seats to get up to the Hill Tribe Village in which most are from the mountainous regions of Mynmar (Burma).  The most famous of the hill tribes are the “Padong” whose women wear the brass rings around their necks starting from the age of three, well  throughout their adult life.  The first year seven rings are put around the young child’s neck and then thereafter, one for each new year.  At some point the rings are exchanged out for new ones as the width of the young girl’s neck widens.  You may be be wondering why this is important to the Padong culture.   It is said that many, many years ago in Burma where this tribe is from, there were many tigers in the woods and they were known for biting off just the heads of people it killed to eat.  The rings were put on to discourage the tiger from biting into a woman’s neck.  The second reason is for beauty.  The men think their women are beautiful when they wear the neck rings.  When a Padong women is not in her village , she will wrap very pretty scarves around her neck.  Many people think the necks of the Padong women are elongated but in actuality, the rings actually push down on the shoulders and collar bones.  Most Padong women will have about 42 brass rings on the neck and these rings can be taken off at anytime without any harm to the women’s neck or health. I took a photo of a grandmother who had huge metal disks in her ears.  I did not see any of the younger women wearing these disks so was wondering if this is still a common practice with the Padong.

I was surprised to notice a Catholic Church at the highest point of the village.  Our guide relayed that all the people of the three tribes were Christian .  It was neat to see that the little covenant that holds the “host” (for the ritual of breaking of the bread for Christians) had a temple like design to it.