Land of a Million Elephants

-


Letting the kiddos take the lead on this larger-than-life entry. Enjoy! 



Did you know that there are only 30 000 Asian elephants left in the world?


A couple days ago we went on the best field trip ever. We went to an elephant rescue center located in Laos. It was a really great experience because I got to feed, pat and bathe the elephants. The place where we went had 4 female elephants all rescued from the logging industry. They taught us about the three different things that an elephant can do - logging, responsible tourism or being wild. Obviously being in the wild is the best for an elephant but sadly the elephants who got captured or were born in captivity can't go back to the wild. After a while of being captivated, they will no longer survive on their own. At the Elephant Village Sanctuary, each elephant has someone called a Mahoot. That is basically another word for an elephant's master or like a caretaker. Each Mahoot has a special bond with his elephant; they build that bond by bathing the elephants and talking to them. When we bathed the elephants in the lake they would lie down with their front legs out in front of them. I stepped on their legs thinking it was a rock a couple times and it gave me butterflies when I realized that rocks don't have toenails!!! My favourite part of my field trip was scrubbing the elephants' crepe-like ears which fluttered like butterfly wings. 


Another fact about Asian elephants is that there are only 2 000 Asian elephants in Laos. For the place that used to be called the land of 1 000 000 elephants that's not a lot. This was a very rare and special experience.

                                                                                                                                        - India, 11 


Today we took the best field trip ever! We went to the Elephant Village Sanctuary. When I saw Asian elephants for the first time I was afraid and excited at the same time. Elephants are much larger in real life than they appear on TV. They're so big that they're two of my dad's stacked on top of each other. There's these people called Mahoots and they spend more time with the elephants than they spend with their own family. Their job is to take care of the elephant. Today, we got to spend a lot of time with the elephants and here is what I noticed. Some of their skin felt like a cat's tongue. We went in the water with them and their ears felt like a crepe. They also have little bristles on their head. This surprised me because I thought they were smooth. They also have very slobbery noses. It's not really boogers it's just more wet. Elephants are very intelligent because they remember you forever. I hope they remember me too. - Oscar, 8


It goes without saying that the best things in life leave you wanting more. This is how we feel about Laos. All around its manner has been more humble, gentle and slower-paced than any of the other destinations we have submerged ourselves in thus far. During our visit to the Kuang Si Waterfall, we fell into a conversation with a man who happened to be the Canadian Ambassador of Laos. He spoke about this place as a hidden gem of travel that has recently been revealed. In his opinion, the time to experience it is now, while its traditions, mannerisms and culture still remain largely intact. Until we meet again, we will be Laotian dreaming. 


Nice to meet you!

Our first sighting of the elephants coming across the river from their jungle home 




 


Kuang Si Waterfall
Free the Bears Sanctuary


Bumping around Luang Prabang 






































Comments

  1. MaresaMarch 5, 2023 at 8:18 PM

    Wow, what an amazing experience! Memories and knowledge to remember forever, lucky kids!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Patti NesbittMarch 6, 2023 at 4:14 AM

    Great photos. Love the waterfalls. India and Oscar's journal entry of their experience with the elephants is fantastic. Elephants never forget.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CaraMarch 7, 2023 at 5:50 AM

    I love the kids’ writing about the elephants and Oscar totally had me in tears with his last line. I can’t even.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cost-Benefit Analysis

-
Image
Just a few weeks removed from our landing back on Canadian soil and there’s much to process. During our cross-globe venture, sitting down to tap the keys of my Chromebook seemed like a treat. Here, it becomes one of the many things that I must set an intention to do. Most days are consumed with an endless barrage of home maintenance to attend to, kids’ emotions to process, life’s work to contemplate......mind clutter. I have more than once found myself sitting with an empty head in front of a white screen. To write these entries means my heart needs to be plugged in and present. Perhaps this piece, in particular, is the most difficult to write because it requires a reflection of what it all meant. It was indeed more than just a 5-month adventure abroad, more than a blip in time, more than a season of life. It meant a deviation from the standard script and it felt empowering and mobilizing.  A large part of our June return date was for my Gigi’s (Grandfathers) funeral. He had passed...
Read more

The How and The Why

-
Image
On our honeymoon in 2007, Dan and I made a pact that we would always consider ourselves "rich" in life if we stayed connected to the traveling spirit we established in our 20's. Back then, it seemed easy. We'd pour ourselves a glass of wine, relax into a daydream, and a few hours later our booking confirmations would be in hand. This time around, the decision seemed a little more daunting, the stakes a little higher, the costs a little greater. Yet almost twenty years later, we have re-committed to the pact we made so many moons ago with one significant alteration. In our wildest dreams, we could not have imagined that the desire to mobilize would become even greater as we would get to see wonder through the eyes of our children. So in a nutshell here's our mission statement. The WHY: Because we can't think of anything that ignites or provokes us more Because we view this as an invitation for our family to come together as a team and to foster resilience, adap...
Read more

Jet Lag.

-
Image
Oscar doesn’t have it. Over the past 48 hours this kid has been a champ at acclimatizing to his new environment. He has flipped his sleeping and eating habits effortlessly, and snoozes soundly and peacefully while the rest of us find ourselves oddly awake at, let’s say, 1:48am. Our first day in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) began with us waking him up at 6:30am (the rest of our crew was up around 4am) to step out into the streets of Saigon. The learning curve with travel is steep and unavoidable, and in less than 15 minutes, we were already admonishing ourselves on how, “we should have been astute enough to read the look in our hotel receptionists eyes” when we suggested we were going to “walk” to our said location. Pungent scents, blaring horns, crumbly curbs and an overwhelming amount of motorbikes descending and weaving uncomfortably close. Within moments I saw a certain look descend over our Indie, a combination of jet lag and culture shock colliding all at once within her sle...
Read more