Elephants For Water

At 8 am, Ailyn begged to cancel our plans and go back to sleep. While no one else agreed per se, all were indifferent at best. We have gone from barely being able to sleep until 6am to having trouble getting up before 9:00. Moreover, getting up and out quickly sounded even less attractive – and our tour guide, Charlie, was coming for us at 9:00. Everyone seemed to eat their breakfast almost begrudgingly and Ailyn couldn't find anything she liked – including all the things she eats everyday.

However, the 2.5 hour ride to Kanchanaburi gave Bailey, Emily and at times Ailyn the chance to nap, while Sennen watched Disney Channel shows on his iPad. Any good student of history can probably figure where we're going. Kanchanaburi is home to the Bridge Over The River Kwai or Saphan Mae Nam Kwai in Thai. Kwai means water buffalo, just to go the full mile here. In Kanchanaburi a crew of Allied POW's were cruelly worked to death by Thailand's Japanese occupiers, using the soldiers to work on building their intended railway through the mountains to Burma. Malaria and dysentery ran rampant while the Japanese gave no care to safety. The passes were treacherous, the work arduous and the explosives unsafe. The POW's were free and expendable labor whose deaths were an equally suitable outcome to their Japanese captors.

The bridge, a museum, a couple of old locomotives and a cemetery to house most of the fallen POW's are the reminders left in Kanchanaburi – an otherwise peaceful, pretty almost classic Thai town that had not for the Death Railway project (as it was called) would likely have been left out of the history books, in a good way. One thing that has always struck me when visiting the memorial sites of Kanchanaburi is that of the Allies with fallen POW's, only America took home our dead. 

For our family today, none of that mattered much. While Sennen of course wanted the story behind why were were walking on a railroad bridge over a river, his focus – like the girls' – quickly shifted to the fresh fruit and Thai iced tea at the market adjacent to the bridge. After some pineapple and a piece or two of pomelo, Sennen returned to identifying all of the flags outside the museum and understanding what the purpose of the railroad was. Then it was time to get on our way again.

Interestingly, our journey took us along a new highway that is part of a multinational project facilitated by ASEAN and financed by Thailand, Japan and China to connect Bangkok to Dawei, Myanmar (Burma). The goal is to find a shorter way to bring goods from Bangkok and Central Thailand to the sea and international shopping lanes, reducing dependence on the longer path through the Gulf of Thailand and via the Port of Singapore. Ironically, this is not terribly different from what the Japanese were attempting with their Death Railway – only through peaceful, capitalistic methods rather than the abject cruelty and exploitation – which in turn is not terribly different for how the European Union has given Germany a dominant role in Europe via finance and trade rather than war.

Another 30 minutes got us to our real destination – the Sai Yok Elephant Preserve. Buried in a gorgeous valley adjacent to a national park, waterfalls, hot springs, a small village and farms growing sugar cane and tapioca is a preserve that houses and protects six female elephants ranging in age from 26 to 55. 

"This is how I imagined Thailand" Bailey said while driving there.

We arrived, washed up and enjoyed a buffet of vegetarian Thai food. Afterward, we changed into swimwear and flip-flops (except for me – I was of course already in them). When we came out, the elephants were in the feeding area – no ropes or restraints of any type – just hanging out, waiting for a snack. Our hosts gave us buckets and buckets of cut up watermelon to feed the elephants. We know from our experience in Chiang Mai that this initial feeding helps the elephants feel comfortably with us and once their guard is down, they are even likely to allow is to pet them.

Ailyn started out afraid to feed the elephants herself and began by watching and then doing it with me. The way they snake their trunk out and around a piece of fruit creeped her out. Sennen was timid for a minute or two but after watching me started feeding them as well. After 15 minutes and a LOT of watermelon, I was petting an elephant who took a liking to me.

Then we went for an elephant walk. There were a few rules for walking through the forest with the elephants: 1. No walking behind the elephants because they lack peripheral vision. 2. Don't stand too close to the elephants 3. Never get between the elephants.

So, the handlers got the elephants headed down the trail and once all six were on the move, we followed from a safe distance. Our family was joined by a Norwegian woman and her teenage daughter. The elephants knew what they were doing and headed to a water hole where the could cover themselves in mud and even roll around in it. The mud cools them and protects their skin. One elephant found the spigot of fresh water that powered the pool and drank straight from the hose, so-to-speak. Two others were best friends and frequently gave each other elephant hugs with their trunks. 

After watching them do their mud thing for awhile, I began wondering how they would decide when to move on – so I asked our guides which was the leader. He said it was one of the two that had already left the mud pool and were wondering around the next stretch of forest. Almost as if to show he was right, the elephant in question trumpeted and the four elephants remaining in the mud pool stopped what they were doing, slowly made their way out of the pool, rubbed their bodies against trees to scratch all their itches and then proceeded down the path.

We followed and after a 5-10 minute walk, found ourselves at the banks of the lower River Kwai, watching elephants walk into the water and submerge themselves to take a bath. Our guides told us we could follow the elephants into the river – and so, we hung some of our belonging and clothes on a tree and did just that. At first, we kept fairly close to the banks because, well, swimming out to an elephant just doesn't seem like a thing to rush into – or do at all. But as the guides encouraged us – and as one elephant moved toward us in a friendly way, I went further into the river to meet the elephant and everyone else followed. Soon, we were in deeper than I would have imagined and we truly were swimming with elephants.

When our first elephant swim-mate was done with her bath (we were told the water was too cold for her liking), the handlers directed us toward Pimjai – the leader – who was staying in longer a little bit upstream. I can't say what exactly about Pimjai's look told me she was totally fine with me approaching, but I walked into the water, swam up to her and began petting her while she was mostly submerged and blowing some bubbles. Within a minute, we were all hanging out in the water with Pimjai – who occasionally shot water back over herself. She was very gentle and being in no hurry, allowed us to take photos with her.

In retrospect its unclear whether Pimjai decided to leave the river because the next elephant down began massively pooping, or if she left and then the neighboring elephant let it rip – but in either case, our elephant left and one of the handlers was literally tossing giant balls of pool further into the river so they would get washed away – which seemed to signal that it was time for us to leave the river too. But not before Ailyn made it clear that she really liked swimming in the river and was sad to leave it.

The elephants all headed back to camp and by the time we got our things and hiked back, they were all back in the feeding area lined up for snack time. One of the staff members showed us the piles of pineapple leaf stalks and numerous buckets filled with watermelon and bananas. She warned us to start with the pineapple leaf stalks because the elephants like the watermelon better and once they start on it, they tend to reject the leaves. The stalks were massive and Ailyn could handle only the smaller ones. So she switched to watermelon first. But Sennen, Bailey and I gave out pineapple leaf stalks for a little while longer. These seem to be the leafy greens and roughage of the elephant world. The elephants bang the bunches to shake off the outermost., drier leaves and then pull out the freshest, juiciest end of the stalks to eat. If they take down some drier leaves, so be it. But those fresh, young leaves are what they want. While eating, they make a massive crunch as if someone was chewing on a whole cabbage. It took them time to prepare and then chew all their roughage.

Once we switched to fruit, the pace picked up and we found ourselves working for our new elephant friends. They can toss a watermelon down and wave their trunks searching out more before you know it. While Ailyn and Bailey fed some elephants on on side of the snack area, Sennen and I worked the other. Sennen took the task VERY seriously, bringing the elephants more like a waiter at a busy restaurant. Ailyn got over her trepidation and was hand feeding the elephants, no longer fearing their winding trunks they use to grab their snacks.

Eventually, the elephants ate their way through everything there was. While the others went to rinse off and change, Sennen and I stayed to give the elephants their last bunches of leaves and watch them crunch through it all before we too went to clean up, but not before I got in another pet with Pimjai. 

It took three-hours solid to return to Bangkok without a stop. Because of the afternoon traffic (some caused by all the sugar cane and tapioca trucks bringing harvested crops to processing plants), Charlie took some side roads. We passed beautiful rivers, lush green forest areas, endless sugarcane fields, tapioca farms, rice paddies and scatterings of indescript rural towns. In between episodes of television of his iPad, Sennen noticed cars and asked random questions such as what pinecones are made of if it's not wood and why toll roads exist and why we don't have them in California. Emily, Ailyn and Bailey returned to their napping for much of the way.

It's hard to decide how to cap off a day of elephant swimming and feeding, but we opted for dinner at food stall on Soi Rangnam – one of our favorite roads in Bangkok around the corner from the Royal View Resort at which we have stayed on every other trip to Bangkok until now. Soi Rangnam always has great food and shopping options and luckily for us, that has not changed. We had a great, casual sit-down dinner at a place specializing in Issan (Northeastern) food. While Emily and I got our fix of som tam, the kids and Bailey enjoyed some fried rice and I introduced Bailey to kai dao – Thai fried eggs which I love and so did she. 

After exploring a nearby night market and getting some dessert for the kids, we headed home to get ourselves clean and rested.

With all that we've seen over the past week, our time with the elephants seemed to feel the most profound and rewarding to us all. There was nothing we actually did for them that their handlers don't already do everyday. We didn't help them per se. maybe it was more that they did something for us. Elephants are majestic creatures who despite their massive size are gentle and smart. Being around them while they are free, in their territory is a treat so few get to enjoy. But to actually swim with them – in a river – was beyond anything we could have imagined. Some people feel this way about swimming with dolphins. But dolphins actually spend all of their time swimming. Swimming with an elephant requires a fairly specific set of circumstances and timing. Swimming with six of them even more so. And to feel welcome and accepted into their little world was unexpected.

So while our elephant day may have been one of the most touristy things we've done, it also felt the most authentic and significant. Moreover, it's likely to be a memory everyone carries with them for the rest of their lives. That day we swam with elephants. Yeah, they'll remember that one.