EC-Rider Travels

We spent the most amazing morning with a pair of elephants at the Mandalao Elephant Sanctuary. This was set up by two Americans with the help of Prasop Tipprasert, a Thai, who had worked with elephants for many years and set up a similar project in Thailand. Prasop was sadly away, but his apprentice/successor welcomed us and a small group of five others ( three Americans, Peruvian and Swiss) and explained the ethos of and necessity for Mandalao. https://mandalaotours.com

Laos was once known as ‘Lan Xang’ or the ‘Land of a Million Elephants’, there are now fewer than 400 in the wild. Most of those in captivity are exploited and used for logging or worse elephant riding camps and other low welfare tourist attractions. Mandalao was established in 2015 as Luang Prabang’s first, non-riding elephant sanctuary where elephants can roam free, over 80 hectares of forest and banks of the Nam Khan River.

Elephants need to eat 250kg of food every day, 6% of their body-weight. This takes most of the day and if they are working or giving rides they do not have time to eat enough food. Many of the staff at Mandalao worked in riding camps and saw the damage this did to the elephants. Not only their poor, undernourished condition, but the constant weight of people on their back, damaged their spines (we saw evidence of this) and potentially their ovaries. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the sanctuary has managed to purchase elephants from riding camps (cost is between $30-35,000 depending on their age) and bring them to the safely of Mandalao. The before and after images of some of their elephants was very sobering.

The ethos of Mandalao is the elephants must be: 1) Free to roam; 2) Free from hunger or thirst; 3) Free from discomfort; 4) Free from cruelty 5) Free from unnatural behaviour (no riding/logging/painting!) and 6) Free from physical and mental trauma. The elephants at Mandalao are beautifully looked after, with their own personal Mahout who is with them all day. They come into an enclosure at night, where two night guards watch over them, and have a full health check every three months.

Our morning started with feeding the elephants bananas, which they loved and just swallow whole – lots of them. We then went for a walk, and they just came with us as our guide explained what they eat – bamboo, jungle ginger, vines and other fruits, leaves, shrubs and roots. They are most frightened of wasps and ants (particularly red). Wasps can go up their trunk (ow!) and despite protective hair, ants can go into their ears. They have four sets of teeth and 18 toes. They drink 7-8litres of water at a time, through their trunk and up to 200 litres a day. They are at their most fertile in their early 20s, have a 22 month pregnancy, and can have 3-5 calves in their lifetime. A well cared for elephant or one living well in the wild can live for 80 years but in captivity it could be half this.

There is not enough food for the ten elephants to eat in the forest, particualrly at this time of year so this has to be supplemented with pineapple plants, sugarcane and bananas which are bought from the local villages. We passed a girl tending her crops and the house where she lived – not a life of luxury.

No one thought this concept could work, but more and more people / tourists are enjoying a very much more intimate and rewarding experience of feeding and walking with the elephants. We loved it.

We had a nice Laotian lunch, tied up in a banana leaf, and then returned to the hotel for a little rest!

In the evening, we went to the night market which was fun and full of lovely things we tried to resist and then continued with the elephant theme and went to a rather good French restaurant, Tippy had recommended called L’Elephant! Camembert followed by escargot – yum! 5am start tomorrow, so good night!