The Elephant, The River

One of the things that most convinced me to violate reason and financial responsibility and social acceptability to go to Thailand was a line from the travel agent's trip description that said "After a hike to a hill tribe village, you will go into the jungle to find your elephant, ride it into the river, and bathe it."

Basically, I read that line, and I knew I had to go.  I didn't know anything about Thailand or about the elephants, not to mention how I was going to afford the trip, but I read that line, and I signed up.  It was the one detail from the schedule I remembered in all the preparations for the trip, and for when I got there.  When people asked why I was going, I told them about this detail.

I didn't really let myself imagine it, though, me riding an elephant, bathing her, seeing what she felt like, acted like.  I kept the thought of it locked away, like a little present to myself I knew was coming but didn't want to spoil the surprise of.

But then, the elephant, the river.  Things happen.  Things turn out not the way you plan.  Things are complicated.

The trip was fantastic--every day, just an amazing collection of once-in-a-lifetime experiences and blessings.  The elephant ride came late in our journey, the day before we were set to leave the jungle.  Six of the women in our group chose to ride early in the morning--and all came back glowing from the experience, some having had near-mystical experiences.  Because mornings can be cool in the jungle in February, they hadn't ridden into the river or bathed the elephants, but riding on the necks of those big, beautiful beings, experienced deep connections with the animals.

I had felt a cold coming on and chose to have a slower morning--I wanted to ride the elephants with the other group of women, late in the afternoon.  We spent the day driving around in the back of a truck visiting some villages, taking gifts to preschoolers, hiking through the jungle, and then rafting down the river back to Chai Lai Orchid.

We got back late, and the elephants were finished with their workday, and there was a great scramble to get us on their necks and off for our ride.  I felt like I didn't even have time to think about what was happening, and four of these huge mama elephants were all crowded around a high platform--I had to decide whether or not to try to squeeze in between them to get to the platform stairs, which meant putting myself in the middle of eight giant back legs.  Plus, there were two babies who were just scampering around, and I felt hyper-aware of that, and didn't want to make sudden movements and freak anyone out.

You know:  trampling.  It's a bummer.

Plus, there's this:  elephants who work in tourism in Thailand?  They're not treated that well, usually.  They're often owned by people who make tons of money from them, and who push the mahouts--the elephant handlers--to work the elephants harder than they should be (the mahouts aren't well treated, either).  This usually means that elephants have saddles attached to their backs, and then four or five (usually Chinese) tourists take rides on them.  The more tourists, the more money.  The mahout sits on the elephant's head.

This isn't great for the elephants.  It's much more humane to have a single rider who sits on their necks.

Plus, the elephants drag their chains around with them. Chains are actually the most humane way (compared, say, to ropes) to tie the elephants up at night so that they don't wander off and cause a lot of destruction or escape, but, you know.  Chains are evocative.  They signal slavery.  So there's that.

Plus plus, one of the elephants at Chai Lai Orchid resort (though none are owned by Chai Lai--they don't support these practices) is trained to bark like a dog, put her front legs up a tree, lay down and roll around, and so on.  Circus monkey stuff.  Hard to watch.  This had been going on in front of us for a few days.

So I'm real aware that these elephants are working hard all day, and then we get back late, and they're tired, and I'm feeling very ambivalent about the whole "riding the elephants into the river" thing anyway, but this is the thing I came to Thailand for.  

Even though it ended up not being what I was there for at all.  Funny how that works.

But I don't really have time to decide, and in that case the default mode seems to be to just do it, so I scramble up to the platform.  Get on the elephant's neck.  No saddle, which is good, but I still don't feel stable at all, and it's so high up.  I'm nervous.  The elephant takes off from the platform and as we pass the side of the building, I get clipped in the head by an overhang.  It doesn't hurt, but it reminds me that I have no control in this situation.  I'm just along for the ride.

Next, instead of a ride into the jungle, we hit the river.  Because after this, the workday is over.  The trick of the river is the elephant takes you in, and then the mahout orders it to roll, dumping your ass in the water.  This is supposed to be hilarious, and it is thrilling, I'll admit.  But then the elephants are commanded to stay on their sides in the river, with the idea being you'll climb back on and the elephant will roll to standing with you on it.

Except these are giant, giant animals (did I already say that?) and when they're on the sides in the water, they're moving around, kicking their legs, and they're slippery and wet.  Plus:  end of the day.  They're not really that into listening to the mahouts, who are on the river bank, watching and yelling commands in Burmese.  My elephant doesn't want to lay on her side at all, for a good long time.  Then finally she goes down, and I get dumped.  I didn't get the message that I'm supposed to get back on.  The mahouts don't speak English and I don't know what they want me to do.

Finally, after what feels like hours, she rolls on to her side, and I figure out I'm supposed to try to get on, though she's worming around, and I try to get on the elephant's back again.  This is not easy, because she's on her side, so you have to kind of situate yourself parallel to the water for when she rises.  She starts to get up, and I slide off into the river again.

The mahouts are shouting, I don't speak Burmese or Thai, and I sort of want out of the whole thing.  I want them to stop yelling at the elephant.  I feel like she's tired, and has had a long day, and is over it.  The mahouts seem to want their day done with too, and are tired of stupid tourists.  I don't know what's next, or even if I can get back on.  It's weird to me that I'm smiling in these photos (and they are funny!) because I remember feeling, um, a little terrified.

Then my friend Julia appears, as if out of nowhere.  I hadn't been able to see or hear anything except the mahouts and the elephant, but of course everyone had been watching.  So Julia, fearless Julia, who had had her peaceful ride on the elephant that morning, jumps in the water and seemingly without any fear at all climbs on our elephant.  She must have yelled at me to get on too, because before I knew it, I was on behind her, moving her hips over to the left so we'd be centered when the elephant rose, and we got out of the water.

My God, she saved me, this Julia.  You can see I was hanging on to her for dear life, after all that.

It really did feel like triumph.

But then Julia got off at the platform, and I rode "my" elephant to the top of the mountain in the jungle, her baby walking beside us the whole way.  She yanked at leaves at we went by, a hungry mama done with her day.  It was quiet.  I was still shaking from the river.  The exhilaration of getting out of the river was wearing off, and I was glad to get off at the top of the trail and let that mama elephant be, and think about what happened.  I walked back to Chai Lai soaking wet, covered in elephant mud, and unsure about all of it.

Here's what I think now:  I would have been just as happy not riding her at all.  I would have been happy feeding her, bathing her, and touching her.  This day, for example, where we bathed a non-working elephant at Elephant Nature Park, was just as awesome:

In other words, I didn't need to be up top at all, but didn't know how to stop the process once I was in it, or even what I wanted or how to ask for it once it had begun.  This seems like a metaphor for so many struggles I've had to find voice in the midst of things I'd begun but then wanted to stop.

And, as our tour leader noted, this is all really complex.  I don't mean for my experience to take away from the experience of the women who rode in the morning.  Or to blame the mahouts, many of whom are exploited refugees themselves.  Tourists make life possible there, in a lot of ways.  I don't have any answers.  I just know how I felt in that one goofy moment after being dumped in the river.

And the fact is I did ride on an elephant, did feel the wiry hair on her head, the movement of her massive body beneath me, her willingness to take me with her and not hurt me, even when she was tired and being poked with the mahout's ankus, a sharp metal hook.  This brings tears to my eyes, thinking about it, about how easy it would have been for her to really hurt me, any of us, and how she would have been justified, and yet this is not what happened at all.