Monday, March 13, 2023 – Day 82
Today we visited an island in the Gulf of Thailand called Koh Samui. Beautiful laid back, and very clean, Koh Samui is the second largest island in Thailand. Known for its beaches, coconut groves and dense, mountainous rainforest; it is also home to the Elephant Kingdom Sanctuary. The sanctuary exists to provide a home for a population of Asian elephants where they can live unchained and no longer forced into service. These elephants are no longer used for tourism as trekking/riding animals or other performance activities. There are still many places in Thailand that do use elephants this way, as well as religious ceremonies, so this sanctuary is also developing an elephant clinic with special veterinarian care for all elephants in the area.
Asian elephants in captivity live to be about 48 years old. The species is considered endangered. Their population has declined 50% in the past 75 years. Fewer than 50 thousand Asian elephants are left in the wild. Habitat destruction and poaching are the leading causes of the decline of these majestic animals.
The Elephant Kingdom is currently home to 16 elephants, 3 males and 13 females. The males tend to get a little rowdy, so they were kept separated while we were there, but they do get to spend time roaming freely within a large habitat with their lady friends.
There is an elevated walkway (visible in the pictures below), suspended above the elephants, for us humans to walk on. We traveled through a portion of their enclosure to observe and interact with them. This is obviously still tourism, but these animals are allowed to choose whether to interact with the human visitors or not.
We got a lesson in elephant nutrition and how the facility grows the grass that is the staple of their diets, as well as how much they eat each day-a lot! They spend about 16 out of every 24 hours eating and drinking, up to 200 liters of water, a day. The participants from our ship decided their routine was not that unlike our own!
The sanctuary has developed a natural “deodorizer” that they can spray on the dung heaps. There was no foul odor we were able to detect…even though huge amounts of input were observed to be producing very large amounts of output! Adding an elephant to our menagerie at home, no matter how cool they are, is NOT an option – we don’t have a big enough shovel!
After our lesson in elephant care and feeding, we were each given a basket of grass bundles and bananas (the little ones found in this region; about half the size of a banana at home). Sometimes the baskets also contain pineapples, sugar cane, or watermelons. They saw us coming carrying the baskets and sauntered over to see what we had today.
Her trunk was surprisingly soft as she snuffled my hand.
The elephants would take the grass bundles from us and then toss them on their backs or on the ground and raise their tusks wanting something else! They knew we had bananas and boy do they love them! They would eat the bananas and only then did they eat the grass. Smart girls, start with dessert!
The elephants each had a handler, a Mahout, that was in the elephant enclosure keeping watch over his/her elephant. A Mahout will often tend to only one elephant, washing, feeding and caring for the elephant throughout its life. In cases where elephants are still used in logging, trekking and performing, a Mahout will be responsible for training and seeing that the elephant performs its job. As cultures change and their treatment of the elephant changes, the Mahout and their human family may move with their elephant to a sanctuary and live at the sanctuary with their elephant partner. This is the practice at the Elephant Kingdom.
It was interesting to see the group of Mahouts sitting in the shade watching their elephants. Every once in a while, an elephant would wander over, seeming to check on their person, then wander back to see if any new food baskets had arrived. I don’t know what their lives were like before coming to live at this sanctuary, and obviously living in the wild in their natural habitat would be ideal, but they seem to have a pretty good life at this sanctuary now!
On the way to see the elephants, we stopped at a beautiful waterfall near a Hindu Temple. The sound of the cicada bugs was so loud that you couldn’t hear the waterfall 50 feet away! We didn’t see them, and it was beautiful, but kind of creepy.
In about a weeks’ time we will be revisiting Thailand. Then, we will be stopping at the island of Phuket. It will be interesting to see how alike, or dissimilar, Koh Samui and Phuket are. Before that, and after a day at sea, we will be calling on Singapore for a 3 1/2 day stay.
We hope you are staying warm and dry. Winter sure seems to have a firm grip on the home front!