Elephants, water and peace

In addition to the cities of the highlands, we are of course looking for peace and greenery. A small national park almost on the border with Cambodia attracted us with trekking. The ranger didn't understand why we wanted to traipse through the forest when the only project for wild domesticated elephants exists here. He kept telling us about rain (when the sun was shining), so we decided to go on an elephant tour. And it was fine like that.

The elephants live with their mahouts (elephant handlers) in the national park. There are currently 10 animals that have had to work as mounts in tourism for most of their lives. What hardly anyone knows: Elephants are taken from their herd as 3 to 4 year old calves (often the entire herd is killed) and then trained. Since working elephants cannot eat all day long as they would in the wild, they become sick and die very early. Elephants eat 300 kg of foliage per day. The diet in captivity is often higher in energy, but difficult for the animals to tolerate. In Yok Don National Park, the project enables maximum freedom for the animals who have never learned to form a community and blindly trust their mahout.

We followed the elephants at a respectful distance for a day, marveling at how smoothly they climbed into ditches or how carefully they knocked grass roots clean so that we didn't eat any dirt. Today the mahouts follow the elephants and protect them. The project will take in new elephants in the next few weeks and AnimalsAsia is in discussions with many elephant owners about transferring the animals to the national park for life - there is still enough space. Great project!

And while we learned so beautifully to drive dirt roads on a moped in Cambodia - we had to try it out here too and visit an absolute place of power, the Thac Dray Sap waterfall. A place where you just sit on the stone and are spellbound. It's clear here, the world is wonderfully made and it's worth driving through the dirt to be able to take it in, this is where confidence, strength and hope are at home.

Kathleen