Let’s be honest, some days are a bit of a let down. They’re good, you enjoy them, and it’s probably no more than the weight of over-heightened expectations. One day, with the benefit of distance, you’ll look back on them with a fondness that would surprise you now.
This wasn’t one of those days.
Today was wonderful.
And the weight of expectation was great. We’d been looking forward to this for ages. And come a long way, and spent a lot of money – not something we do lightly, as astute readers will have gathered. Well, it was everything we could have hoped for, and more.
The place was lovely. Mondulkiri Project Elephant Sanctuary. Just a few basic huts, set in the middle of the most majestic rainforest landscape we’ve seen, anywhere. The guide was delightful, starting out with a half hour account of the history of the project, including a brief cv of each of the five elephants. Sophie, rescued after years hauling illegal logs through the forest. Happy, fifteen years carrying tourists. Others injured carrying mines for the Khmer Rouge, or carrying excessive loads to market, day in day out, made to speed up by means of a hook through the ear. And now, here they are: in the forest. Free, cared for insofar as it’s necessary, but otherwise free to live life the way they should.
And then, equipped only with large bunches of bananas, we were led down into the valley, to our first rendezvous. The elephants know the drill, and they do love the bananas! With each new encounter we were reminded of the life stories, and left heartlifted to think of their liberations, and the lives they now enjoy. And they can be long lives – apparently a healthy elephant can easily live to a hundred or more.
My phone tells me I took over 500 photos during the day. It must be a record. And in truth nothing I took could do them justice. But I certainly enjoyed trying. (The chap with a cap, BTW, was our guide. Something in this gesture seemed to me to speak of the bond that unquestionably exists between the guides (we had two during the day) and their elephant charges.)
It’s hard not to get a bit sentimental about elephants, especially when you get close up. Their eyes are so expressive – you can really feel them looking at you – you; it’s personal – and there’s a lively intelligence in them that you can’t help responding to. And at the risk of getting sloppily anthropomorphic, they make such human gestures, all the time – not just with their eyes, but with their whole bodies. They stumble slightly, stubbing a toe as they climb over a tree truck, and readjust, just as a person would. They suddenly lift one rear leg, and use it to – very obviously – scratch at an itch on the back of the other. And those trunks! Always moving, probing, reaching, tossing a banana back into their maw, picking another up from the ground. So…articulate!
After a happy morning of banana-largesse, communion with nature, and the benign attentions of these huge but oh-so-gentle creatures, we came back for a delicious lunch, a siesta, and a little time out, to sit quiet and look out at the stunning landscape.
Then back down to the valley, for what we hoped would be swimming with the elephants at the waterfall and waterhole. No sign of elephants when we got there, but the water looked inviting, so in we went, and spent a happy half hour splashing around and getting pummeled by the falls. Sadly, no elephants appeared, but we agreed that while the icing on the cake would have been nice, the cake had been so very nice that we could be philosophical about it. Wildlife doesn’t always go to schedule. C’est la vie.
So everyone got out, got dried, got dressed. And just as we were lacing up our last boots…a rustling in the undergrowth…elephants! Hooray! A frenzy of changing and back into the water.
So we did get the icing on the cake after all.
Finally, the elephants slowly crossed the river and lumbered gently back into the jungle, and we clambered back into the battered old Toyota for the ride back to town.
What a day!
