Laos: ELEPHANTS!!!!! And a lil Luang Prabang

Fair warning: I am SUPER in love with elephants so have included all kinds of information and photos because OMGTHEYARETHEBEST. I cried several times because I was overwhelmed.






July 26: Elephant Conservation Centre

We ate breakfast at the hostel, and made it to the bus just in time. Poor Andy was feeling like absolute garbage; luckily, he didn’t barf but it was a close call. It was a 2.5 hour drive to Sayaboury, it was pretty and I saw wild elephants along the way (sadly, no pictures of those)!!




We got to a boat (a small barge, really) where we met our guide for the 3 days, Kampet, and I was very pleased because he’s nice and funny, with a great laugh. As we were boating along, Kampet told us what we’d be doing for the few days and we saw the elephant garden full of sugar palms, banana trees, bana grass, and a bunch of other stuff.

We got settled, and then met up to start our day. We had a tour of the site, first to the Enrichment Area where Suriya, a 6 year old, and his mom, Mae Vann, were doing some work. They were the first elephants that we got to see and I got teary.




We walked down some rather treacherous steps to the nursery and were all sweating a great deal when we were given a great lunch of vegetable soup and fried rice. Then a one year old and her mother came out to play in the water and have some snacks. HOLY POOP, SO CUTE AND LITTLE. She would play with the Mahout and swim between her mother’s legs and it was the most adorable thing.



She’s too young to be around people just yet, and is part of the Baby Breeding program to promote more elephants in Laos. There are only 400 elephants in captivity and 400 in the wild in Laos, and Laos means ‘the land of a million elephants’ but that is clearly not the case anymore. One reason: logging. Elephants can pull 2000kg and are used in Laos for logging. A female is out of commission, in terms of work, for at least 5 years (gestation for 22 months and then 2-3 years of milking before the baby is ready to be on solid foods alone) and there are very few owners/loggers who are willing to lose money for 5 years.

Elephants are really expensive to maintain: they eat 250-300 kg for 17 hours/day, typically in 50kg stints. They are migratory so that they can find enough food, which is proving to be difficult for the wild ones when habitats are broken up; they can choose to either starve where they are or cut across farmland/through villages to find another forest.

After the nursery, we went to the hospital where we learned how to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy elephants, medical training, and saw a healthy elephant skeleton. With the training, there is a new elephant each day who is prepped for any potential medical treatment by being touched all over and learning English commands that will be used by the vet. If an elephant isn’t used to having say, their ear touched, they will be really scared and uncomfortable and will not allow blood to be drawn from their ear. It’s important that they know the voice and smell of the vet assistant, plus the different things that might be asked of them, so that no one gets hurt and the elephants can be helped. 

Amazingly, there are no medicines for elephants, so everything is for humans but in massive dosages. For example, Suriya is 6 years old and was given 100 antihistamines for a bee sting on the eyelid and the subsequent swelling. That's the equivalent of a children's Tylenol. Elephants live to be 80-90 years old, and are very much like humans. A 6 year old elephant is totally a 6 year old human. 

Fun fact: elephants have 26 teeth that get switched out 6 times before the age of 15!  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the inside of a mouth or the teeth, which would have been super cool cause they’re really weird. Super weird. And those tongues are massive. Whoa.

We walked down to the water while the elephants were bathing and suddenly I was surrounded by 8 elephants and cried tears of joy. It was the best. After they bathe, the Mahouts bring them up for snacks. Oh goodness gracious. I’m in love, which I already knew, but holy geeze it’s real. So real.






Safety rules with elephants: stand 2m away from their hind legs. If they kick, you die. Only approach when the Mahout is there, so the elephant has someone they trust and knows that you’re okay. The Mahout works with the same elephant for their whole life, ideally, and it is a job taught by fathers to sons. Only approach an elephant from the side, so they can see you.

After dinner, one of the biologists took about an hour to talk to us about the goals of the centre, how they manage to involve tourism with elephant conservation, and a bunch of fun facts about elephants. 
- Asian and African elephants are different species and cannot breed; same family, different genus i.e. they are further apart than we are from apes.
- There are 50 000 Asian elephants in the world today, 35 000 of which are in Asia.  
- Trunks: 16 000 muscles, Asians have 1 finger while Africans have 2
- Asian elephants might be evolving to no longer have tusks. Females are mostly inside their mouths, like extra teeth, while males have external long tusks. Unfortunately, most of those are cut off so as not to be stabby for tourists or logging, or by poachers.
- Elephants can only carry 150kg on their backs, but can pull 2000kg. The seats that we see for tourists to sit on are actually meant to carry the Mahout’s equipment only.
- Elephant families involve many females with the matriarch as the head, typically she is the oldest and thus wisest, and a bunch of babies. Once males hit puberty, called M[something], they become wild and rough so are not allowed to live with the families but instead are solitary.

Their feet are not at all like I would expect: they actually walk on tiptoe, with pads under their heels. These pads allow them to feel vibrations in the ground: communicate with one another and detect movement. These spongy pads mean that elephants are super, duper quiet. You’ll see bells around the necks of a lot of these elephants. They’d never be found, otherwise!


July 27: Elephant Conservation Centre

Awesome breakfast of fresh sourdough bread with eggs. Then we walked to pick up 6 of the elephants: Me Dok, Me Khoun, Me Kam Ohn, Me Kien, Me Vann, and Suriya. Fun fact: Me (pronounced May) means mother; the Me Kong = Mother River… so saying, Me Kong River is silliness. We followed Suriya’s Mahout and saw how they are chained up overnight (chains are 40-50m long) so that they have enough space to move about and eat but don’t wander into a neighbour’s field and get shot.  


When all training at the centre is complete, typically after about 3 years, the elephants get to choose their name. There are several names written on sticks, and the elephant gets to pick one that she likes best. So cool!

While they were bathing, I made friends with Me Khoun. She’s the best, imho. She’s older and was in the logging industry for 30 years so was never able to have babies and is more comfortable around humans than elephants (read: she doesn’t know how to elephant, especially not in a family like the Centre is trying to create, and takes a long time to warm up), so her only friend is Me Bou Nam, though she also likes Suriya. She is shy and likes to take her time, so she tends to follow or spend a lot of time alone. Also, she wasn’t a fan of Me Dok or Me Kien so avoids bathing with them. More time to hang out with me!





Me Khoun’s Mahout is Souk. He has a great smile, and we laughed together a lot even though he didn’t speak a lot of English. Mahouts always have snacks with them; I figure it’s so that the elephants are faster to warm up to the tourists coming through. I checked with Souk if it was okay to approach Me Khoun, and he handed me a chunk of sugar cane: success! I spent a good 10 minutes of one-on-one time with her: whispering sweet nothings, petting her cheeks and trunk (all I can easily reach), getting swatted away by her ears (message received: ears are to cool her down and swat away unwanted pests). It was absolutely incredible.

We then walked with them to the Socialization Area. We sat up in a treehouse to watch them in their natural environment. I’m not sure that it’s actually all that natural because they’ve got an area of 1.5 square kilometres for 6 elephants, and we were told they typically like to use a lot more space than that, but still the socialization is important so that they can figure out their family stuff.




I was surprised by how well elephants can camouflage. They’re huge, but they are really hard to spot 
when amongst the trees and grasses, and since they move so quietly, sometimes they only way to know where they are is to wait to hear a trumpet. This could be because they are excited and happy, or because they sense danger. There are, apparently, different trumpet sounds but I haven’t spent enough time with elephants to be able to figure them out.

Back at the main building we had vegetable soup and rice for lunch, then a lengthy siesta. About 30 minutes before we were to meet up with the elephants again, it POURED rain and was really lovely because it broke the heat – awesome! – plus, it was really cool to have a thunderstorm pass right over us.

I made the mistake of wearing flip flops to see the elephants again. It would have been smarter to go in bare feet because of the mud from the rainstorm, and it was still raining when we met up. We watched the elephants bathe again and then gave them lots of treats and hung out. For the people who get to meet the elephants for the first time, it’s a really great time. For us, it was simply nice to spend even more time with the heffalumps. Obviously, I hung out mostly with Me Koun, though spent a little time with a couple of others.

We had 2.5 hours before dinner so slept and read and it was nice. Two new people arrived and we had really nice dinner conversation with the whole table. It was fascinating: despite having several meals and spending a lot of time with these people, we never learned names.

There is only power here, by a generator, in the evening from 630-930 at the latest. It seemed to shut off around 830 = quick, charge everything! After dinner we packed while we had light and then went to sleep. I find sleeping difficult because of all of the new sounds, including birds and lizards and motorboats… at all hours.


July 28: Elephant Conservation Centre

Enrichment day! Our job was to set up the enrichment area for two elephants. It is an area for mental stimulation and socialization. Basically, we hide food and they have to find it. They love it! We had the biologist and Kampet helping us. Apparently we were getting experts so needed to be stealthy with how we hid things. By that, I mean that we would put food inside hose tubing and then hide that within a big tire that would get wrapped up with more hose and other tires. It is supposed to take them 10-15 minutes to get into the tires.

Elephants are picky about their food. They won’t eat it if it’s in or near poop or mud, or if it’s a day old. They want fresh stuff. After we set up the enrichment area, we got to watch Me Khoun (my friend!) and Me Bou Nam (her friend). Me Khoun was so happy she was trumpeting on her way in and as soon as she got there.

We noticed that Me Khoun hangs back and watches how Me Bou Nam does things. Then she’ll go for it. Super cool thing: it was the first time Me Khoun got through the tires. Souk stayed to watch her and was so proud, it was adorable.








We saw Bua Banh, the bull, coming back from medical treatment. He was in the logging industry and broke his leg, which was not allowed to heal properly so now he walks funny. The green stuff on his leg is medicine for an abscess he developed while at the centre. He is the only adult male currently at the Conservation Centre.

His back right leg should not bend/not bend like that. Poor guy. Good news: he is part of the breeding program!



We had lunch and then got back on the boat to head back to Luang Prabang. I was really hoping we’d get to hug elephants again, but unfortunately not. We were dropped off at the post office and found a guest house nearby. On the main strip there was a Canadian bakery called Joma, so clearly we stopped in. SO GREAT.

July 29: Luang Prabang
We loved Joma so much we went back there when our power went out. Yay air conditioning, delicious beverages, cinnamon buns, and wifi!




I wasn’t feeling great so hung out in our room, and Andy went out around 930 to find food. Unfortunately, pretty much everything was closed. Sigh.


July 30: Luang Prabang

We were picked up at our guest house by our translator for the day, Le. This is a super common name in Laos; it’s everywhere. We spent the morning knife making. For real. We found it online through Backstreet Academy, which is an organization that promotes locals to get involved with tourists and for tourists to give back to the communities they visit by doing things that may not be in the guide books. Le was a tiny 17 year old high school senior who translates for fun on the weekends. She was great, and I’m so glad we had her as our translator.

I was handed a sledge hammer and a piece of metal from an old army Jeep was smelted until it was hot enough for us to whack it. And whack we did; my body was SO sore. Yowza. It was boiling hot, and I don’t think I will ever make a knife again, but it was a really cool thing for us to do and the blacksmith, Bua Pan, was really impressed with Andy.

This blacksmith shop is unlike anything at home: it is literally on his front doorstep. There are very few safety precautions, and it seems like it’s simply thrown together with whatever supplies happen to be on hand. But, Bua Pan comes from a family of blacksmiths and now his sons are also learning the trade, so it seems like this is just how things are done here.








We spent the afternoon in air conditioning, then went to Indigo CafĂ© for an early dinner because we heard the food was good. We enjoyed it, but it wasn’t super great. When the night market started up, we went for a wander to find some fun things. I wasn’t feeling great so went back early while Andy continued shopping. Digestive troubles can really put a damper on days.


July 31: Travel

We spent the morning packing, then wandered to find brunch. We were SO happy with Dexter (a cafe somewhat hidden on the main tourist street), and highly recommend it. We were picked up in a Tuk Tuk that Le, our translator from Backstreet Academy, organized for us for a cheaper rate than if we tried to do it ourselves, and got onto our flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Here’s where things get interesting. Everything was fine and dandy until we tried to check-in for the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta. We had been in the airport for 4 hours and were ready to simply get on a plane. Oh, no. It would seem that I put Andy Knoerck on the ticket instead of his full name, which is in his passport, and they wouldn’t let him check in. We had to buy another ticket. ANOTHER TICKET.

Then, we get to the counter to drop off his bag and she tells us that the ticket we bought does not include luggage. I appreciated that she knew we had just been with her colleague and she felt bad, but then we had to go across the aisle to a luggage sales counter. Twas a VERY expensive mistake.
We made it to Jakarta, Indonesia, at 1am, got a taxi, and were really excited to get into our beds.



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