Three days ago we had a very dusty local bus ride to get to the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayabouly. The bus ride was an amusing experience, much better than these “VIP” buses. We took a tuk-tuk to a little boat to get to the remote center. It was a lovely little elephant paradise that has only been open for a month or two. They started 11 months with a forested 100 hectares and now have bungalows and a veterinary clinic. Currently the center owns three elephants, Mae Dok who is 50 years old, Mae Boun Nam who is 17 years old and Mae Kham Ohn who is 19 years old. There are also two mother elephants and their babies which are on loan as part of a elephant nursery program. The people running the center have some very lofty goals and I hope they achieve them all!
Dec 8 – To Sayabouly and the Elephant Conservation Center
We were up early and on our way to the bus station to buy our bus ticket to Sayabouly so we could visit the elephant conservation center. We bought our ticket and had breakfast at one of the little stalls at the bus station. While enjoying our noodle soup breakfast we got to observe the bus station workers loading two motorcycles onto the top of our bus. When we boarded our bus we we noticed there was more leg room than the “VIP” bus, the seats didn't recline, and everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. This bus is obviously just a local bus, there was no A/C, the front passenger side windsheild was busted up, and everything just seemed a little worn. It also seemed that our bus would not reverse so we were pushed out of the bus terminal! It was quite an interesting ride... the road changed between paved and unpaved. The unpaved sections were soooo dusty. It fully explained the dust covering the everything in the bus. People kept opening and closing their window depending on how much dust was kicked up. It was also a very bumpy and windy road. We had to cross the Mekong to get to Sayaboury Province on a ferry. You could see they are starting to build a bridge. We reached the Sayaboury bus terminal about when they said we would. We couldn't believe our bus was on time!! Our tuk-tuk driver picked us out no problem as we were the only white people on the bus. We took the tuk-tuk for about 10min and then we met up with a boat. The boat took us for a lovely ride on the lake, Nam Tien lake. We reached the Elephant Conservation Center around 1:30. Turns out this place was only started a year ago and they have only been open to guests for about a month. It's just beautiful though. We got a tour around the center. They have a little elephant museum that explains much about elephants, mahouts (elephant drivers) and how they fit into Laos culture. The center is trying to promote elephant conservation, sustainable elephant tourism and also, in the future, a Mahout training center. One of their main projects right now is trying to increase the live births of elephants. Most elephants work in the logging industry and it isn't cost effective for an owner to get it's female elephant pregnant. It's also quite expensive to pay for the stud service of a male elephant. What the ECC is doing is called the Baby Bonus Program, female elephants who are pregnant or have just given birth come to the ECC and will spend the next three years here with their Mahouts. The owner is given a hang tractor to replace the elephants services and the ECC also pays the Mahouts salary while the elephant is at the center. Elephants have a 20-22 month gestation period and it's another 3 years before the young is weaned. The idea of the program is to allow the mother and baby sufficient time together so that the baby elephant has the best chance of survival. Right now there is apparently only one elephant born for every ten that die. After learning about the center and getting taken on a tour of the veterinary clinic (the only one in Laos), we got to meet the 3 elephants owned by the ECC, Mae Dok, Mae Boun Nam, and Mae Kham Ohn. All female elephant names start with Mae which means mother. We also got to try mounting the elephants which was very cool. After getting up on the elephants and being lead around a little we gave them some bananas as a treat and a thank you. Then their Mahouts took them back into the forest to graze for the night and we followed along. At night the elephant is chained to a tree with a 20-25m chain so it doesn't go wandering off. Each night she is tied in a different area near a some water so she has lots to eat and drink, elephants only sleep about 3-4 hours the rest of the time they spend eating. After going with the elephants we had a nice cold shower, next month they hope to have a solar water heater. All of the electricity at the center is provided by solar power. Dinner was tasty although kind of standard. We went to bed fairly early but that is typical after a long day of travel and the excitement of the elephants.
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| The Elephant Conservation Center |
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| Me on Mae Dok |
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| Beau on Mae Boun Nam |
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| Bath time! |
The internet has decided to become slow as molasses so I'll post the rest tomorrow.
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