Oh, elephant, my elephant. Also: I am a slave who pays to be a slave

I hope you have already read Rony's latest post, but in case you haven't, read all about Cha'am, elephant safari, and the WFFT here. He talks a lot about how we feel, lots about his bears, and about what we do in the evenings.

I wanted to let you know a bit about our daily structure with the elephants. I have already basically introduced the elephants at the WFFT, and here's how we've been working.

At 6:30, we have the pre-morning feed. I'm not sure if that's what it's called, but it might as well be at that G-d-forsaken hour. June needs the most care, so whoever is on her watch (along with the sweet Bua) needs to make her these special pallets or peel and cut her fruit and hand feed all of her food to her. This means you get very dirty. Both because of what you are preparing, and because June has to suck on the food, since she has no teeth, and sometimes she gets so excited that some of the juice splats all over you.

Sounds gross, and it is, but only the first time. Then you're so dirty, you don't even notice it anymore.

Bua the sweetheart

Anyway, so in the morning we feed the elephants and we clean their enclosures, which means we remove all of their poo (for real) and the leftover leaves from whatever plant food they were given (sugar canes, banana, or corn). We also drain their water hole and scrub it clean, and then refill it.
Then breakfast, which we make ourselves. It's the only meal we make ourselves, there are cooks who make lunch and dinner.

After breakfast, we have feeds for all the elephants - and Sam, the horse - several times during the day, we water them several times a day, bathe them (except for Somboon and Khan Kluey, the baby, since he's wild and we don't really get close to him), clean their enclosures again, and also challange them with food. This isn't mean, they actually enjoy it. What we try to do is give them as much challenge as possible so they won't be bored, like tying some fruit in a bag and having them somehow rip their way through it. Khan Kluey picks up the back and hits it on his back to open it, and when that fails, he stomps on it and tears it with his teeth. Totally hilarious.

Khan Kluey, the 5-year-old baby

Somboon

Once every couple of days we go harvesting, meaning the elephant volunteers (except for one who needs to continue to feed June and the other elephants) are taken on the back of a pick up truck to some field to chop the plants with machetes (for real) and then load them on a truck. But we load them so high, and it doesn't matter which ones you're dealing with, you will always get a rash. We are out in the hot sun, covered head to toe, and still turn out red.

Speaking of red, I have a tan. Not just red. For real. :-)

Harvesting

We also have all kinds of special assignments, such as transferring previously-collectected elephant poo (for real) to one of the trucks and transporting it to another part of the center in order to use as fertilizer. Before you get all grossed out, the poo doesn't smell at all and it dries up real fast, so it is just like picking up a hairy baseball.

I hope you enjoyed the explanation :-)

Poo :-)

The day doesn't sound as full as it probably should have, but when everyone goes on harvest and one person is left to take care of 5 elephants and a horse, things get interesting. June also has a 6 pm feed, so whoever is taking care of June (usually 2 people) actually has a 12-hour day.

June

But the truth is that, although you're running around like crazy all day, it is so much fun. You do have some breaks here and there, and the truth is that everyone is exhausted, so it's OK.

The people are, for the most part, absolutely incredible. You wouldn't think that you can make really great friends in one week, but you can. I really hope I don't cry and make a fool or myself when we leave tomorrow at lunch time, but I have been told that it happens a lot.

The funnest part is that I have made some friends in Australia who we will meet up with while we're visiting Australia, and a couple of our friends from England will be in Australia at the same time as us and we have a day in the same place so we're going to meet up, too.


Tomorrow we head off to Bangkok for a few days, and then we go up north for about 12 more days. We'll write more when we're there, but I have a feeling we'll be sharing more of our experiences from the WFFT first.

First week in Thailand - Cha'am, Safari and WFFT

So here we are a week into our trip and so much has happened:
We're at the WFFT, the rescue center, and you already heard Talia's version about the place and how she discovers everything.
Now my turn :)


I was at the center 2 years ago, for a very short time too, and unfortunatly we couldn't stay longer this time either. We have so much to see and do and Talia doesn't know Thailand as I do (it's my third trip to this beautiful country)

Well, things have changed, of course. First the center got bigger, much bigger, which is good. It means that they have more room for new animals now.
A few animals have grown since my last visit, especially the bears which I loved so much last time and had a few days to take care of this time too.

For those of you who knows the center and the bears, I can say that Kaka and Galamair have grown and are beautiful. Galamair is still bitting his foot and Kaka is still calming him down by leaking his hear. But they have a bigger enclusure now, and are next to Oumpoom.
Pepsi and Cola are still together, althought the third one has past away now. They don't get along very well now, fighting all the time and live "separately": Cola is in the cage while Pepsi is in the enclusure. A bit sad.
Tan has his own enclusure now and live next to his parents. Yes, even bears have a hard time leaving their parents :)
Well, the other bears are still the same: Somsi, Bouncer, Oumpoom that I mentioned earlier, the school bears and all the other bears. There are 3 or 4 new bears, 2 of them are very young and cute.


The working day here is long, as Talia said in a previous post: from 6:30 to 17:00. For the wildlife part (bears, macaques, gibbons, nocturnals, birds) it basically consists of feeding twice a day, clean the enclosures, enrichements for the animals so they don't get bored and give them some activities, and tiding their enclosures (pool cleaning, replace old branches by new ones, and so on).


Well, don't think that our day ends here. In the evening, there are many activities, much more that I had when I was there 2 years ago:

• a night out in Cha'am with restaurant and beach party (Edwin as DJ)
• night Safari in the biggest national park of Thailand looking for wild elephants (we saw 4 at 5 meters from us!)
• Quiz show on WFFT hosted by Tommy himself (Talia's team got first place)
• Movies nights
• Football games. Yeah! After 11 hours work, who would have thought we would have strength to play...

And that's only in a week!

It's so hard to leave all this now. Especially that we have met great people and had such a good experience at the center. We now need to prepare for the rest of our trip in Thailand and get ready for Bangkok.

Here are some pics from the center. If you want more, go to the album on facebook (you can see it even if you don't have facebook):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=565785&id=906005363&l=87f03c0c2a

Beautiful sunset on the way to the safari


Galamair and Bouncer, the Malasian Sun Bear and the Asian Black Bear


Meauw, the tiger, whose nervous system is injured


Talia with Pai Lin (not Sarah :))

Elephants and tigers and bears - oh my!

Thanks everyone for all of your comments and messages after our last blog post. It's nice hearing from everyone, even if we can only check our email every few days. technically, the Internet cafe is only a 10 minute walk, but after you've been on your feet from 6 am until 5 or 6 pm, the last thing you want to do is hike into town.


Last we spoke, we had just finished our first day at the center. The short story about the center is that they basically take animals that have been abused and either nurse them back to health and release them back into the wild if they can, or just continue to take care at them at the center until they die.

I have been working with the elephants. When we just arrived and were taken on thetour of theplace, the volunteer coordinator just walked us right into one of the elephant enclosures and we almost peed on ourselves. These elephants are used to being around people, so they're very fun and playful, but seriously,it's an elephant. Those things are huge. But he made us pet them and I fell in love very quickly.

The days start our a bit difficult in that getting up at 6 am when you're used to waking up hours later is very hard, though you get used to it very quickly. It's not uncommon for the volunteer area to be completely empty by 10 pm - most people go to sleep by 10 unless there is something going on (like a BBQ we had last night).

Rony has been alternating between the primates (from the ape and chimp family, not monkey family) and the bears (more bears), and I can't tell you what his daily schedule is exactly like - he probably will another time. The schedule also changes according to what group and type of animals you're working with.

Generally, we get up at 6 or 6:10 and get started at 6:30 am by giving the animals a first feed. There are 5 elephants at the center (there were 3 more, but their owners took them away the day we arrived so we never got to see them). They are divided into 3 enclosrures, and those are usually divided into a few teams, depending on how many volunteers there are.

Pai Lin, who apparently isn't fond of other elephants, has her own enclosure, and Somboon and Khan Kluey (the 5 year old baby) are in their own enclosure. Khan Kluey was severely mistreated as a baby and torn away from his mother and a too-early age and as a result is very difficult, so we aren't allowed to touch him.

In a separate area of the center are June and Bua who are so funny. They're both around 70 years old and also went through severe abuse. June just arrived at the center in June and is fed all the time so that she can gain weight. You may not think it, but they each have their own personalities and it is so funny to discover what each of them is like.

June doesn't have any teeth, so we have to prepare her food differently than the other elephants. If the other 4 get mostly leaves (like sugar canes and banana leaves), and fruit once or twice a day, June's fruit is individually peeled and sliced so that she can easily swallow it, and we also prepare special pallets, kind of like hamburger patties (but veggie) a few times a day, so working on June is a full day.

I really want to write more, but I have to get going. I promise to update again soon and write more about our daily routine. For now, you can see some pics in this Facebook album (direct link even if you don't have FB):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=565196&id=906005363&l=655e662750

 

Talk to you soon!

Sawadee - Hello! We're in Thailand!

Hi everyone!

We have been in Thailand for about 24 hours now, and as we said earlier, we are starting our first week here volunteering at the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand where Rony is taking care of the primates and I (Talia) am with the elephants.

Before we begin and post a few pictures, we wanted to let you know a few things. First of all, we flew with Royal Jordanian and it was, at least for me, one of the best experiences I've had as far as airlines are concerned. I definitely recommend it.

We were picked up by a driver from the reserve and had a gorgeous 3-hour ride to the reserve:
Beautiful temples, typical villages, 20 students back from school on a small pick-up truck (some were standing on the tailgate)!

We arrived just before dinner, which was much like the first day of school. We knew no one, everyone was talking to each other, and we were trying to figure out where to sit.

Major fail. :-)

First of all, the Thai food prepared by the staff is delicious. Second, everyone is incredibly nice, and they all introduced themselves to us when they first saw us. We can't remember anyone's names yet, but we can probably tell you what country everyone came from: Oz, Tassie, South Africa, Norway, Germany (East and West), Italy, USA, UK, France and Switzerland ...for now. Yesterday evening was especially exciting for Rony who was able to meet Tommy, an old friend who he volunteered with last time he was at the reserve, who is now the volunteer coordinator. We went to our room, took the coldest shower of our lives, and passed out around 10 pm.

Rony says that the center has changed a lot since last time he was here: The reserve is probably twice as big now as it was before.
This morning we woke up at 6 (yes, SIX) to start the early morning feed. Rony was with the primates, and I was with the elephants, and let me tell you, it takes about 30 seconds to get over their size and fall completely in love with them.

Basically, along with another volunteer, we fed the elephants, played with them, fed them some more, watered them, fed them some more, cleaned their poop (for real!) and, in a special event for today, I had the immense priviledge of shoveling elephant poop (for real!) from the elephant area and using it as fertilizer in another area of the reserve.

Rony took care of the primates and has done basically the same: Clearing cages of poop, feeding the monkeys, and cleaning some more.
Once we finished our day, around 5, we got to enjoy our evening with a few activities organized by the reserve: We went to a batcave and watched the bats go hunt for food in the area, and now we are writing to you from the town of Cha'am where we went to dinner and beers with most of the rest of the volunteers. We have to mention again that everyone is really tons of fun. 

We haven't had a chance to take many pictures yet - and we're exhausted beyond belief - but Tommy, the volunteer corrdinator took us on a tour of the reserve today and we took a few pictures, so here are a few for your viewing pleasure. The connection at this Internet cafe kinda sucks and keeps crashing, so we won't upload many pics today, but we will later on. Talk to you soon!

On the train on the way to the airport

Macac (not sure about the spelling yet) - isn't he gorgeous?

Gibbon - You have no clue how hard it was to take this picture - he kept running around like crazy!

Gibbons - The guy just looked like he was sunbathing

Our Asian journey begins!

We're at the airport! You've gotta love free wi-fi at Israeli airport Ben Gurion. :-)

We wanted to let you know about our schedule for the trip. Tonight we are departing for Thailand. Here's our schedule:

Nov 2-21 - Thailand. We are spending the first week at a wildlife rescue place, volunteering. I (Talia) will be with the elephants (I'll finally be short and thin!) and Rony is hoping to be with the bears again like he was last time.

Nov 22-24 - Sydney, Australia

Nov 24-Dec 7 - New Caledonia, an incredible island close to Fiji, the one where Rony's friend lives

Dec 7-Jan 6 - Australia! And New Year's Eve in Sydney, of course :-)

Jan 6-10 - Hong Kong

Jan 10-15 - Beijing, China

Jan 15-18 - Shanghai, China

Jan 19-Feb 19 - Japan!!!

We need to go board the plane, so we can't write much. We aren't sure if we'll be updating this week since the Wildlife place doesn't have Internet. I shall let you know how I survived 1 week without Internet.

On my new blog HowISurvivedAWeekWithoutInternet.com.

Not really.

They're calling our names. We'll talk to y'all later :-)