Volunteering in Thailand: Day 4

We all woke up around seven o’clock. The dogs were up too and helped the sleepy ones get out of bed by trying to lick them through the net.

Out of habit, the first thing I did when I woke up was fold up all the blankets and roll up my sleeping bag. I put everything away. Then, I used some bottled water to brush my teeth. I spit the water out onto the forest floor. That brought back memories. I felt like I was camping with my family again.

We all gathered around the fire pit. The air was chilly and the fire felt nice even though it was just starting.

A kettle of water was already boiled, so we could make hot drinks. I made hot chocolate and sipped on that while breakfast was being prepared.

Here are the chaos of shoes that was so confusing last night. Tara’s show was still under the planks somewhere.

Breakfast was amazing. We had pineapples served in their own skin.

Real toast.

and hard boiled eggs.

We were given scarves already blessed by monks. We watched a documentary where volunteers got to save trees by tying on blessed scarves but I didn’t know we would get a chance to do that too. I thought it was so cool!

One of the main reasons for such a low population of wild elephants in Thailand (and the world) is because they do not have much of their natural habitat left. Logging and urbanization have been shrinking the forests they live in. Thai people will not cut down a tree with a blessed scarf on it. They believe it will bring bad things.

Bye Bye Elephant Haven!

You can’t really tell, but this is the two room washroom. It’s basically a shack falling apart around two holes in the ground. You can’t even close the door properly! haha

Off we go to save trees!

Even though so many are already saved. We had to look really hard to find a tree with no scarf on it. Many times, we got excited, and then realized that vines had grown over the scarf. It was okay to “re”save a tree. We just really wanted to find one that wasn’t saved yet.

Found one!
I found a massive one and my scarf ended up being too short.

Chris also had a short scarf, so we joined forces and saved a tree together.

If you look carefully. You’ll see that our tree was already saved at least once. We didn’t realize until after!

Jess climbed up high to try to save this one. It was sort of dangerous. She ended up falling, but it was just a slip down the tree and she wasn’t hurt.

We waited around until the elephants were found and round up by the mahouts. Good morning ellie!The walk down the mountain turned out to be a long one.

It was easy to go downhill, but we were stuck behind the elephants. They often stopped to snack.

I stayed at the back because the elephants would often spray dirt on their backs.

It looks like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, but the path actually drops down really steep.

The mahout hopped on the elephant’s back but he didn’t go any faster. He still got distracted with all the forest food around him.

Jungle Boy was waiting for us at the river.
Back on the raft! No one fell this time. Bye Bye Elephants! Thanks for letting us go up to Elephant Haven with you =)

We all jumped onto the truck for a ride home.

I wouldn’t have minded walking back but everyone else was beat. It’d also give us time to take a shower before lunch and I was all for that.I took a shower right away. There was still time before feeding time, so I took some pictures from my room. One window faces the shared washrooms.

The other window faces the field. We’re right across from Michelle’s house and some elephant shelters.After lunch, Brad took us to a part of the property I hadn’t been yet. Some people were already working there. We joined the staff to take the bark off of some logs. Brad had to sharpen some machetes for us. Most of us got small hand sized tools. The locals and Chris got to use a big one.I was sleepy after the afternoon project. I laid in bed but I actually didn’t sleep because I spent the whole time talking to Melita. She told me a LOT of funny stories about Malaysia and Australia. She is Chinese Malaysian, but studied in Australia for a couple of years. Her sister lives there now and she’s thinking of going back for a job.

After dinner, I got a massage. Eric, one of the tour guides, was getting a massage beside me. He’s a fluent English speaker because an American couple adopted him when he was a child and brought him to America to study. It was nice to be able to communicate fully with a local Thai person.

Lisa took us to a little store with benches out front. Some locals were already celebrating at the tables, so we sat down by the side of the store. It was very nice. We chatted and had drinks (beer and spy).

See how Brad’s not smiling in the picture? He had a really bad canker sore and he was quiet all night.

Many of the dogs followed us out of the park. Some of them disappeared halfway. Number One and Paed sat by our feet the whole time, like they were guarding us. It was very cute.

All of a sudden, a big bang scared all of us, including the dogs. Fireworks were being lit close by. We tried to comfort the dogs but they were shaking from the loud noise. Number One hid under the table. After a couple more bangs, Paed couldn’t take it anymore and he ran off. Chris tried to find him, but he disappeared behind a house. We decided to take the rest of the dogs back to the park.

When we got back to the park, Paed was no where to be found. Melita, Chris and Lisa went back to the village to see if he was hiding somewhere. Fortunately, Emma and I bumped into Brad. Paed was with Erin. Brad ran (he was SO fast, he just disappeared into the night) to call the rescue group off.

Soon, it was midnight. We counted down three separate times because everyone’s watch said it was midnight at a different time. Melita and I went home after that. Since we stayed up so late, the dogs weren’t in their usual places. We had to go out and find them. In the end, four slept in our room.

Duke slept on my bed.