Silence on the website
After all the adventures in Elephant Nature Park it is quite on my website. That doesn’t mean to say that I have nothing to do. There is still a lot to do before we start. I am currently busy with permits, finding the right people for our team, the planning and the new website, who you know can admire thanks to Auke of Anderemedia and Ursula of Megla! My current plan is:
Permits: The most important
As I expected this is taking very long. I am waiting for an appointment with the minister at the moment. We have sent an application in Thai and are now waiting for an appointment. Hopefully we can get this sorted within 2 weeks because that is when we are supposed to be buying the elephants. Lek ahs been talking with the princess again and explained a bit more about the project. She had already heard that a ‘Dutch girl’ was planning on doing something with elephants but she didn’t know what exactly. Lek has explained to her what the goal is of our project and has convinced her that it is a good project. She has now told us that she would like to help if we encounter any problems. I would like to meet her myself, but that also has to wait. It takes a lot of patience, trust and flexibility…but in the end it will probably all happen at the same time!
Looking for the right people for the team:
Projectmanager: Mr. Lee
I met Mr. Lee two weeks ago for the first time. According to the people of the Elephant Nature Park he was the right person to be manager of the project. He will have to communicate with local authorities and check all the local permits. He will also have to contact the people we meet along the way, make sure we have places to rest at night, take care of the logistics, he will be the manager of the mahouts and take care of presentations in Thai. I was quickly convinced that he was the right person for the job. He owns a biological farm, a travel agency and a fun park in Chiang Mai. Mr.Lee has a lot of experience with this type of project, he knows where the problems will arise and how to handle them. He works and lives through his heart. The wellbeing of the elephants is very important for him. That is why he also has full confidence in our project: Karma!
Mr. Lee had a very good idea. In the beginning of December we will drive the route that we are suppose to be taking with the elephants. That way we can make a definite route, and make the planning more detailed. We can see where we can stop over at night-time and start making contact with the locals. We will be taking a big pile of flyers with us in Thai to tell them that we are coming!
Lawyer: Mr. Sanya
I visited a lawyer together with Mr. Lee to have a look through our project so he could see where he could help us. It is a reassuring idea that a lawyer is responsible for all the official documents, because there are a lot of them!
Mr. Sanya will be checking all the papers after we have bought the elephants, making sure the transport permits are ok. He will also be looking into the local permits that are needed, making sure we can cross borders without any hick-ups, he will be standing stand-by while we take the journey and will be able to be present when we talk to the press to answer juridical questions. Yesterday I visited Mr. Sanya together with Lek and we decided to give him the job.
Professional vet: Dr. Hattayapoon Eiam-Nai Muang
During the entire walk we will have a vet walking with us. With the vet with us the elephants are guaranteed a good health. Her job: making sure the elephants are physically and mentally strong enough during the journey. Her only job is to make sure the elephants are ok. With our elephant health rules we will be making sure that the walk will be a fun and relaxing time for the elephants. You can find out more about these elephant health rules here .
Mahouts
we will be taking three experienced mahouts with us, that we are sure of that they will take care of the elephants in a friendly way. It is difficult to find mahouts that don’t use a hook ( steal sharp hooks with which most mahouts keep there elephants under control). That’s why we will be using mahouts from the Elephant Nature Park, where they used to control the elephants without using a hook, and they gladly want to help. To make sure that the transfer goes smoothly we have asked the previous mahouts, to join us on the first leg of the journey. So the first few days we will have 5 mahouts with us.
The planning
On the 18th of November we will be going to the Elephant Roundup in Surin. Lek , Mr. Lee, the vet and me will be heading from Chiang Mai to Surin. From Bangkok co-writer Liesbeth and the filmcrew from Nature Conservation Films will be heading for Surin as well. In Surin there are about 300 working elephants that show there how they make money. the street elephants go to Surin too. Since begging has been officially banned from the streets, Surin may be the last way for them to make money (the mahouts get paid a lot in Surin) We hope that because of all of this, there might be some street elephants for sale that we can buy. The plan is that when we are at the festival, we will observe some of the elephants and talk to the mahouts. We will be visiting the families of some of these elephants to see what there history is. At the end of November we will be buying the elephants freedom. After that it will take at least a month until all the paperwork is sorted and the elephants are rested. We will probably be leaving around the end of December/ start of January.
