Cambodia: Living with the elephants

After a short flight from Laos, we arrived in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh.

As planned, we boarded a bus the next morning to the Modulkiri province and visited the Elephant Valley Project.

Now, Cambodia might not look that big on a map, but due to traffic and road conditions, getting around can take a while. Some highlights from the 8h bus ride:

Wanna take a picture with a handful of spiders?

The locals will be happy to put them on you...

Amazing what they manage to transport on their motorbikes ...

We finally arrived in Sen Monorom, "capital" of the Modulkiri province (population: about 8000).

Another 20min jeep ride the next morning, and we were there!

Jack Highwood, founder of the Elephant Valley Project (EVP). The man himself led us through the jungle....

... and after climbing down a steep ravine and crossing only a few small streams...

... we arrived at a place in the jungle they call "Elephant Heaven".












One of the Mahouts, who is taking care of the elephants. At the EVP they normally do not ride the elephants except for Bob, the only male elephant of the herd (for safety reasons). And they do NOT use the hook to intimidate and control the elephants - here the elephants mostly get to do whatever they want.

Getting them ready for a bath is part of their daily routine.

Sylvia's having a lot of fun helping out!

We were instructed not to approach the elephants to closely - they need their personal space, too. Instead, just wait until they come to you.

Alright, let's wait... :-)

... still waiting ... are they getting closer now?

 There you go! :-)

 

 

Lunch time!

Time to relax at the EVP "headquarters"...

So, on a serious note, in case you were wondering: the Elephant Valley Project is a so-called eco-tourism project. When we first heard about it, we of course were wondering whether the elephants were treated properly there and whether it's "right" to visit a place like this.

As it turns out, the EVP is a wonderful project for a great cause. All their elephants used to live in captivity and, unfortunately, most of them have been abused and mistreated. As a consequence, they never learned to live in their natural habitat.

The EVP buy or rent (yes, you can rent an elephant) these elephants and allow them to live in their natural environment again. Also, they hire locals to work on-site and thereby support the local indigenous population. Check out their web site if you want to learn more, and if you want to consider making a small donation to their organization, that would be wonderful. :-)

The afternoon: more elephant bathing and scrubbing. Lots of fun, and they seemed to appreciate it.. 

... and as a treat, they get to eat some banana tree today!

An elephant needs to eat about 20% of its body weight every day, so that's nearly 800 kg of food for the average Asian elephant!

That explains why they need to feed for nearly 20 hours in a given day.







To help them out we had a little gift:
Guess what's better than just a banana tree?
BANANAS!

Didn't know that, but elephants love bananas!

So how do you feed them? Just put banana at the tip of their trunk and they will put it into their mouth themselves - and then repeat many times.
In case you were wondering, they don't peel the bananas, but some of the elephant ladies are very picky eaters and only want the yellow ones...

What a great two days at with the elephants! We'll definitely come back some day.

Coming up next: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.