I’m cool and refreshing and you can’t use me. Na na na na nah!
I went to two different murder houses, erm, dentists today. Both lots had a go at me and then at my wallet. Still, my wallet actually survived (as did I, obviously), which it never would have done back in my mother country. Continue reading
A new baby was born at the park yesterday. Have a look at this video and check out the excitement of the aunties. This is the third baby born here in the last few months – they’re absolutely beside themselves!!
Try having one of these very close to your own…
A Big Thank You to these business in our lil’ town in New Zealand:
Whangamata Veterinary Hospital for their kind donations of supplies for us to take to Elephant Nature Park for their animals.
Sunny’s, Whangamata, for their donations of pencils and T-shirts for us to take to the free school for Cambodian kids that ENP is developing at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary.
And Whangamata Library for donating books for the kids also.
Big smiles and thanks to all of you – I know this stuff is going to be really appreciated at the other end. 🙂
Mong Dee keeps bananas at the ready while Sao Yai bathes in ecstacy…
Luckily, elephants are vegetarians. One of the Park residents, Pom, giving an ele a treat.
My partner and I are off to North Thailand in three weeks to work with elephants. Specifically the ones at Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, North Thailand. Large, grey proboscis-laden pachyderms banana-hoovers abound there, as well as many rescued dogs, cats, buffalo, cows, chickens and assorted other beasties. They’ve had 2 baby elephants since I was there last year – Navann and Dok Mai. Will I be able to resist hanging around them like a tween at a Bieber concert? Probably not. Will I be able to stop myself from trying to sneak one home in my luggage? Well, that would be a yes, because we only have a 30kg luggage allowance, and I’m pretty sure even a baby banana-hoover weights more than 30kg. Will I be able to avoid snakes, spiders and leech attacks? That remains to be seen. Last time I was in Thailand, it wasn’t out in the jungle I came close to having a snake-related cardiac arrest, it was in a town where I was innocently waiting to cross the road and one fell out of the power lines beside me! Very funny God! Read that story here. Read about the Giant Killer-Leech Attack here.
And so, the preparation begins: Continue reading
Lek Chailert, founder of Elephant Nature Park – she gets to many places and helps many other beings. An awesome woman!
Produced in 2012, this is a documentary that features Lek Chailert, founder of Elephant Nature Park, and covers a wide range of the situations and issues of the Asian elephant today.
The reality is that the Asian elephant is becoming extinct. If we don’t all come to the realization that in little or big ways we can help the ones that are left, our grandchildren or their children will have to visit museums to gasp at an animal that until recently walked this earth.
What will they think of us, their recent ancestors, the ones that allowed the unethical treatment of elephants to continue, and allowed the extinction of them to occur? I, for one, don’t want to find out the answer to that question…
Chang Yim – young male elephant and all around ratbag. Elephant Nature Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I read this heart-rending post on the blog of a young New Zealand woman. Please read it and other posts on there, and share it around. It’s my wish that every tourist in the world refuses to attend elephant shows and riding parks and makes much more informed and ethical choices in the future. People like this young lady are making it happen.
Thank you.
One giant step for pachyderm, half a dozen steps for mankind.
I had to share this with you. It was just posted by saveelephant.org (Elephant Nature Park). A tour by blind students from Korea entitled ‘Touching an Elephant’. So very poignant…
Read their post here
A blind boy feels Faa Mai. Just look at the patience on her face…
“A human being is a part of the whole universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
— Albert Einstein
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein.
Elephants strolling by at Elephant Nature Park
I am guilty. And I was ignorant. I didn’t know.
This baby is so hungry she tried to latch onto a passing elephant she didn’t know to suckle.
Photo by Lek Chailert
I went to India four times before I saw my first real live elephant. At about 2 o’clock in the morning, in Pahar Ganj, a place bustling with people and traffic and street dogs and rubbish. I was so thrilled to finally see one that I didn’t stop to think that the poor thing was probably stressed out by the noise and traffic, and also probably just hanging out to get off the hard tarmac and go to bed. Continue reading
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