Finally on tour!
Friday morning we get up at 5:30 am to be able to leave early. When we have broken up our camp the elephants are being fetched. Silver Flower is having some bananas and Sri Nuan comes to take a look at the truck. When the truck starts, she runs away. The old mahout runs after her but then hurts his ankle. He orders Narong to go after her, but he gives up quickly. Lee grabs a bunch of bananas and sprints into the field. Like a hero he returns with Sri Nuan by his side. He is angry with the mahouts cause this shouldn’t happen at any time during our trip ofcourse. Imagine one of the elephants started running at one of the temples we will be staying at. Could be disastrous.
When we are walking down the path to a good spot for the elephants to step on the truck, a villager asks “chang bpra baan”? Bring the Elephant HOME?” Yes, you are right, we will bring the elephants home!
Only a fews days before we were worried that some villagers weren’t to happy with us coming here. Lee had heard that some of the mahouts at the village were angry with us because they had heard that we were against the practice of begging with elephants. That night scooters loudly keep passing our camp. For a moment we thought they wanted to do us harm, but after a while they just left. We decide not to distribute the leaflets we have made. When we have started our tour, and we are sleeping at temples we will be less vulnerable, and at least we have then been able to start our trip. We don’t even want to think about the possibility of angry mahouts stopping us so we can’t even start our tour.
Very happy with the reaction of this friendly villager who does understand what Bring the Elephant HOME is about, we start running to the truck to be in time to help the elephants to get on.
Fortunately the elephants and the mahouts are already getting used to this routine. Sri Nuan is doubting for a moment, but Silver Flower shows him the way. For the first time they neatly stand next to each other in the big truck. When we drive away Hanna and I are sitting on top of the truck cabin, so we can keep a close eye on the two elephants from above. Grandpa Duang and Wiseat are standing in the back of the truck to see if everything is ok. We give the elephants some pine-apples and cucumbers but they clearly want more. Smart as they are they soon now were we have hidden the food. Sri Nuan comes closer and closer with her head and smells the extra pine-apples and cucumbers which lay in bags next to us on top of the truck cabin. With her trunk she tries to pick up the bags, while I’m trying to distract her attention by giving her a cucumber now and then. But now she knows where to find the bag she wants to have it all. When she does get it she puts the whole bag into her mouth with her trunk at once. From the roof of the truck cabin I try to trade the plastic bag for a cucumber, while we are driving on a bumpy path. A daring fight but it works in the end: Sri Nuan has got all the cucumbers from the bag, but I’ve at least got the plastic bag, which wouldn’t be healthy for her.
As I turn around I see a power line coming towards me: bend! We miss the power lines by a fraction… Let’s get of this roof. We stop at a gasstation where a bus with children is standing. The children spontaneously start singing the elephantsong when they see us coming. It’s fun to look at the faces of people we are passing. “What’s in that truck?” you see them think, and then a smile comes upon their face: “Chang!”
In the afternoon it starts to heat up. It’s good we left early so we don’t have to drive for too long. We pass a number of police posts, and Lee explains that we only have to stop when there’s an “animal office” with it.
When we pass one, Lee gets his stamp and we drive on. Our lucky chains and the crossing of our fingers seem to help! When we arrive in Ayutthaya the elephants walk into the field right away: fresh grass, what a difference with Surin. Lee asks the owner of the green field next to the temple if the elephants could graze there during the day, that’s no problem. After giving them to drink and find a good spot in the shade for them, we are ready to make camp ourselves.
