Elephant Trekking

Among the tourist attractions in Luang Prabang, Laos is the Elephant Mahout course – a 1-day or 2-day excursion where you get to ride elephants mahout style (i.e. on their shoulders, the way their trainers do), learn their commands and then take them down to the river for a group bathing event.

We arrived at the elephant camp and were duly outfitted with our ‘mahout gear’, a rather unflattering matching denim set of three-quarter length shorts and a shirt. ‘Better their clothes than mine’ was my thought process and I ignored the hideousness of my outfit and resolved to have a good time.

The day started with an hour long ride on the elephants in the traditional elephant harness. This was likely to get us used to the size of the animals and used to the way in which they walk. After the ride, we sat down to a simple lunch and a nap, which was occasionally disturbed by the camp cat who insisted on chewing on our clothing while we slept. After swatting it away about 10 times it finally took the hint and fell asleep on a nearby pillow.   

After lunch came the moment to ride the elephants bare-back as it were. The ellies were lined up and we were encouraged on clamber off the platform and sit on their necks/shoulders and basically hold on for dear life. Except there was nothing to hold on to. My first few moments on the elephant were terrifying. Though the elephant herself was a lovely, gentle, obliging creature, I was concerned that I might lose my balance and then have to deal with a rather far drop to the ground. My assigned mahout sat behind me (in the seat normally reserved for tourists) and assured me it would be alright. About 30 mins into the walk he asked if I was doing ok. ‘How nice of him’ I thought, and replied affirmative. At which point he promptly took a nap and left me and the elephant to our own devices. Thanks fully my old girl was a peach, unlike Dave’s elephant who had a phobia of elephant dung and would veer off the trail and plough into the forest to avoid having to step over the dung of the elephants before here. As a result, Dave and his mahout were scratched and bloody after their walk, having ploughed through so many thorny trees.

Riding an elephant is a strange experience. It takes a bit of balance to sit comfortable on their shoulders as they walk, and as you lean on their heads for support, you realize how incredibly wiry the little hairs on their heads are. Sometimes, they flap their ears, which provides a lovely breeze as your legs are neatly tucked behind their massive ears as they walk.

The highlight of the day was taking the elephants down to the river to bathe. Mine elephant obligingly sat down and raise one knee, allowing me to clamber up her knee and onto her back (it’s not as graceful as it sounds – the mahout did a fair bit of pulling and shoving to get me up there as well). Dave’s elephant refused to sit down, but did put up her knee. She then proceeded to walk away while he was still climbing up her, leaving him dangling off a moving elephant until the mahouts managed to shove/hoist him up. Fun for all, especially the elephant. Here's a clip of it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ6hNw5OdPc

The elephants love the water and once they’re in, they proceed to get playful. In my case this meant showering me with cold river water from her trunk. In Dave’s case, it meant dunking under the water entirely, leaving Dave to wonder when he might fall off his crazy elephant and how he would get back up.

At the end of it all, we’d had a fantastic day. We politely ignored the fact that NO safety briefing had been included in the tour. So we devised our own safety measures which included hanging off the elephants ears and bellowing for help should something unexpected happen. One thing we did notice was that none of the elephants were prodded with elephant hooks. Instead, the mahouts used loud voices and small branches broken from trees to coax them forward. It was nice to see the animals are treated with kindness and gentleness and made the experience a positive one all around.   

- Dal

The Slowboat to Luang Prabang, Laos

When first told to take the ‘slow boat’ to Luang Prabang, Laos from Thailand, I was skeptical about the value we’d get from sitting aimlessly on a boat 2 days in a row. I wasn’t about to do it. At the best of times I don’t like boats – I find the sensation of being away from land disconcerting. Maybe a part of this is because I’m not very comfortable around deep water. And my resolutions to become a stronger swimmer have still seen no action (though, when I get home, I’m COMMITTED to swimming at least twice a week and finally learning a freestyle stroke, as I’ve yet to see anyone breast-stroke their way out of a dangerous ocean situation).

So when Dave suggested we take the slow-boat, I was appalled. I alternated between protesting and pouting, but the fact of the matter was, the only other option was a 12 hour mini bus ride over horrible roads. The slow boat it was.

Where we boarded the slowboat. We still bave no idea why all the boats were crammed so tightly together.

One of our many stops

This guy gave us a ride on his speedboat from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Xuai May, Lao, the night before we got on the slowboat.

We arrived at the pier that morning and saw a host of docked boat, waiting for the latest roundup of tourists. Apparently, 15 years ago, the slow boats were used to transport locals from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. However, over the years Luang Prabang has been named a world heritage site and the tourists now flock there, so we were surprised to see our boat was occupied by a 90% tourist majority.

We got on the boat by literally walking up a plank from the ground to the boat. Suddenly I got vertigo and barely clambered up with my backpack on my back. Once we entered, we noticed the ‘luxury’ seats were all taken. At the front of the boat were about 16 seats that looked like they once belonged in a minivan. Beyond these seats were wooden benches (with backs, thank goodness) for a capacity of about 100 people seated comfortably.

We had been pre-warned about the wooden benches and had brought cushions with us to soften the ride. Mine was a graduation pillow that said ‘congratulations!’ on it, Dave’s had a pattern with little blue bears, but the most entertaining was the pillow of one of the friends’ we made, which read ‘You fill my little world light up’ and had a little bear hugging itself. The pillow belonged to Jeff the Aussie, and perhaps it was what made Jeff seem so approachable to us!  

Within the first 20 minutes of being on the boat, we saw one Frenchman fall into the baggage hole in the floor (he ended up with a bloody shin, and immediately a swat team of moms surrounded him with bandages, cotton and lao lao – the local whisky). We also saw quite a few tourists nearly stumble off a step on the boat, and Dave bashed his head against the ceiling while trying to get in. No blood though, so no attention or Lao Lao for him, unfortunately. ‘This is a death trap’ remarked one tourist’ ‘And we haven’t even left yet’ quipped another. And that’s how we made friends with Ed, Maria and Jeff.

The 3 were travelling together and we figured if we were going to be trapped on this death ship together for such a long period of time, we should make friends. This turned out to be a wise decision and they are LOVELY people who we spent the next few days with in Luang Prabang, and later met up with, through coincidence and good fortune in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodia. Soon others joined the group as there were attracted by our little game of ‘Murder’ we had started playing as well as some card games where the loser had to eat the Blueberry-Hazelnut flavoured Pringles chips (yes..they tasted exactly as you think they do). There were Simon and Rosie who are also brilliant people (travelling for over a year !) who we went Elephant trekking with in Luang Prabang. And we rescued Christiane from the clutches of Frodo, the ship hobbit (background – we noticed one very loud American tourist who took off his shirt and had a nipple ring as well as a belly button ring. He was quickly christened ‘Lord of the Rings’ which then morphed into Frodo.)   Don’t worry – we didn’t make friends with Frodo so there is a slim to none chance he will ever read this blog.

 This poor wounded guy tripped into the luggage compartment that the Nurse mom is standing in !

During a couple of the stops, local kids would board the boat selling chips and beer.

An intense game of cards. Loser eats Hazelnut-Blueberry Pringles.

Turns out, in the company of good people the 2 day boat trip was a very fun experience. The Mekong River is absolutely beautiful, with densely forested hills rising by the water’s edge. And the boat moved smoothly enough that there was practically no sea sickness on the boat. In terms of danger, I’d say it was pretty low. While I didn’t see life jackets on the boat, in the rare event something did happen, the river is narrow enough for the average swimmer to make it safely to either bank. And I didn’t see any crocs to speak off, so I assume swimming would be pretty safe, as long as you didn’t ingest the water. Luckily, we didn’t have to find out.

My bum's saviour.

No caption required.

Just one of the many entertaining signs in SE Asia.

We’d highly recommend a visit to Luang Prabang if you ever get to Laos. It’s a beautiful little place where people go for 2 days and end up staying the week. The place is safe as there is a midnight curfew (not really enforced, but all the restaurants and bars close, so what else is there to do), which we broke only once as we tottered home after a rather fun night with the group. We were approached by a young fellow selling ‘#1 best opium’ which Dave politely declined before we picked up the pace to get home to our guest house.

 - Dal