One of the most amazing experiences one could wish for. We were blown away. It started a little frantically as we had to check out of our guest house while simultaneously catching a bus and checking into another guest house. Lao patience is a virtue and our driver, Lai, was a virtuous man indeed.
Elephant Village is without doubt the best organisation to take this type of experience with. Their core mission is put before profit with the well being of Elephants and the conservation of Laos jungle being top prioritiies. Logging is still flourishing in Laos due to the increasing demand from the Chinese (who are setting up Chinese Immigration towns around Laos that dwarf anything from the colonisation of the past centuries). Elephants are used due to the very challenging conditions and terrain. Unfortunately they are literally worked to death and then eaten. Brutal given this is 2011 but we're not here to judge the traditions of another people. The outcome though is that elephants in Laos are a highly endangered species, along with many tree species that are being cut down to create attractive flooring. For a National Geographic lover or David Attenborough affectionado, you'll know how many traits elephants share with humans. The ability to cry, show grief, their gentle nature, the emotions and behaviour they demonstrate to their young and to the loss of one of their herd. They are intelligent, communicative and have happiness as well as sadness, they are also self aware, recognising themselves in a mirror (put a mirror infront of a cat or dog and you'll see what I mean). The Elephant Village has 12 elephants (they just added one) and they invite paying tourists to ride and be educated on elephants through tours and vacation stays at the aptly named Shangri Lao, or through one of the many Mahout training courses they run.
Corinne and I took a one day trek and elephant ride with the trek coming first.
Jungle trekking is incredible due to the variety of terrain and the variety of flora, fauna and animals. It is yet more indelible on the mind when you throw in a mile or two of rapids that terminate at the Mekong River. To get to the start point for the trek we took a long boat up the Mekong, the recent rain fall swelling the river and causing a harder than usual upstream ride.
Once at the beginning of the route I was wishing I had a parang or similar as the recent flooding had caused some bank collapse along the route and an interesting foray over and under jungle limbs and vines, ocassionally decending through untrekked trail using the vines.
It was always worth it though and we preferred to be on this side of the river (apparently fewer leaches).
The scenery was incredibe and the ocassional fellow trekker of a different variety provided diversion and time for me to pick my jaw back up off the floor. Here's a big snail......
a hairy and very itchy caterpillar....
our friend the leach
and a few more surprises
even a lovely cool pool to swim in at the end - all very Tarzan and Jane like.
Of course the highlight though is the ride back down, which can only be described as extraordinary. I felt very colonial, and Rin.......well, not sure how Rin felt but she steered Abdulalah a true course over fallen trees and down very steep slippery slopes. She can be my Mahoutess any day.
After the Elephant VIllage excursion was over we had the joy of properly checking into the guesthouse we'd dropped our backpacks off in the morning.
I'd say we did pretty well.
No comments:
Post a Comment