I learned to plant and save coral during a trip to Cozumel in September 2018. Saving and replanting coral is more important now than ever as our oceans warm, chemicals from sunscreens abound, and acidification continues to threaten our ecosystems. I now have a Coral Reef Conservation Specialty from PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), and I am ready to travel to help save our reefs! [Read more…] about How I Learned to Plant and Save Our Coral in Cozumel!
You can Join in the 2017 Clean the Crow Clean Up on September 16!
Join us at Clean the Crow on September 16, 2017 for a cleanup event from 8am-10am! Keep Dallas Beautiful has partnered with the City of Dallas and we’re asking for your help.
Come catch the litter flying in the breeze so Dallas can enjoy a clean park. Spend two hours to Keep Dallas Beautiful, then reward yourself for doing a good deed by enjoying the rest of the day at the Trinity Wind Festival.
You can register at voly.org to volunteer at this event. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks!
Ethical Elephant Tourism in Thailand
People love elephants, at least in theory. Everyone who travels to Thailand wants to trek with Elephants. Elephants are highly revered in Thai and Buddhist traditions, and were used for warfare, much like horses. More recently, they were used for the destruction of their own habitats. Elephants, thankfully, are no longer used for the logging industry in Thailand, as the country has been over logged. At that time, the late 1980s, there were elephants and their “mahouts” (handlers, trainers, owners) who were suddenly without work. These mahouts began using their elephants to beg on the streets, they turned their elephants into trekking elephants with a box on the elephant’s back for people to sit in (these are very harmful to elephants as their backs are the weakest parts of their body), or training the elephants to perform in shows. The only safe way to ride an elephant (for the elephant) is to ride on their necks. There are still some mahouts who still work illegal logging camps on the border of Myanmar and Thailand, who give their elephants “speed” to make them work longer and faster, and who abuse their elephants with the tools of the mahout: chains, the thotti (hook), the valiya kol (long pole), and the cheru kol (short pole). These are the traditional tools used to “break” elephants, and to control them. The hook is particularly horrible, and if you see an elephant with scars, open sores, wounds…you’ll know it is being abused with the hook. Using the hook side of the tool is not necessary, regardless of what any mahout tells you. Elephants are damaged by the hook and it causes them pain and injury. Period.
Where once there were nearly 100,000 wild Asian elephants roaming the jungles of Asia, there are now about 2000 wild elephants left in Thailand. They are terribly endangered as their habitat has been so altered and destroyed; they migrate the same way they did for hundreds of years…only now there are farms in their way. Farmers do not hesitate to take action against elephants who threaten their crops. It is a tragedy that it is really not a question of IF the Asian elephant will go extinct, it is a question of WHEN. With only 2000 left in the wild, and approximately 2000 “domesticated” elephants in Thailand (including those in sanctuaries), it won’t be long until they are gone.
The elephant is a symbol of Thai Buddhism, and considered an animal who brings good luck. When I planned my trip to Thailand I very badly wanted to see and spend time with elephants, but I didn’t want to harm them. I did research, and among the excellent research I found Adore Animals blog on Ethical Elephant Tourism and another blog at Jdomb’s Travel which helped me understand what I needed to look for. Most sanctuaries are located in the Chiang Mai area, quite north of Bangkok, but I did find Elephant’s World in Kanchanaburi City, 3 hours from Bangkok. 3 hours is not super close, especially when you only have 5 days, but Alexandra, my daughter, and I were determined to spend time volunteering with elephants, and it was a enriching, wonderful experience.
Elephant’s World was founded in 2008 by Dr. Samart Prasithpol (head of the Department of Livestock of Kanchanaburi province) to function as a ‘retirement home’ for elephants who were too old to work, too injured, or too ill. Elephant’s World works FOR the elephants, to give them a peaceful, happy life. The elephants at Elephant’s World are well cared for, and enjoy a day of feeding, dusting themselves, playing in the mud, being fed some more, and then, having a lovely wash and dip in the river. (Meet the elephants here.)
Our day began with a 3 hour drive to the sanctuary, then we met and talked with the volunteers about the elephants. The volunteers were very like those I worked with in Mozambique, mostly young adults who want to see the world and make a real difference, so volunteer tourism is a great way for them to travel. I wish more American young adults would do this type of traveling. We started by learning the structure of the day, then we were given a huge basket of fruits to feed Lam Duan, a female elephant who is about 57 years old who was used in the logging industry, then as a trekking elephant. She is completely blind, and likes to be fed directly in her mouth instead of using her trunk. She also does not like to be stroked or touched. Lam Duan has obviously been worked far too much, and because she is blind she is not readily accepted by the other elephants. Elephants in the wild live in family groups and have deep emotional bonds…but elephants who are in sanctuaries lost their families long ago, and sometimes do not care for other elephants around them. Lam Duan is kept away from most of the others. A mahout would use a hook if Lam Duan was attacked by another elephant (which has happened) but mostly she just stays away from the group. She does like John, a small 7 year old bull who loves to play. Poor John was separated from his mother far too young, and seems to think that he should be able to make little elephants with the 50 and 70 year old matriarchs around him! They just brush him off, but he does get excited!
During the volunteer day one feeds, makes sticky rice balls with protein powder and veggies for the elephants to eat (they eat A LOT). Then you enjoy the show as the elephants have a mud bath, which they really enjoy. After that, it is time for the river, and swimming with the elephants! What an incredible privilege to swim around an elephant, and to climb up on its neck for a ride and a dunk. The elephants really love their river swim and bath! After their baths, once again we fed them baskets of fruit. We fed an elephant who used her trunk, and it was so incredible! The elephant trunk has more muscle in it than the human body does. Isn’t that amazing? They grab that food and stuff it in their mouths very quickly, and if you don’t stuff food in the trunk, the trunk comes looking for you!
Our day ended after feeding time, but there is one thing I want everyone to know: the sanctuary is trying very hard to raise the money to build a fence to keep the elephants out of the sugar cane of neighboring farmers. Until that fence can be built, the elephants have to be chained when they are not being active. They need $20,000.00 to build that fence. Here is the link to donate: http://elephantsworld.org/en/donate. Be sure and let them know Travels with Tam sent you! It really is a good cause…these poor elephants have suffered so terribly, and it would be such a gift to them to be able to roam instead of be chained. I very much encourage you to give, even if it is just a few dollars! You can also volunteer, whether for a day or a month or a year. What a great experience! Do check out Elephant’s World in Thailand! It was one of the best days of my trip to Thailand, and Alexandra felt the same.
One final request: should you go to Asia, please avoid the touristy trekking and shows with elephants and choose Ethical elephant tourism. We can all help make change in our world with just simple, good choices. The “nellys” (nellyphants) will thank you!
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More of Tofo
Another day with no diving or ocean safaris…..most of the group are learning to dive today, which leaves four of us with nothing to do, Marcel, Pieter, Ben and I. Our coordinators from All Out Africa had to leave to renew visas and so nothing has been scheduled for us, but we have been notified that tomorrow we will be on an ocean safari (which is out on the boat looking for whale sharks). Yay! Hopefully I’ll be able to post whale shark photos tomorrow!
So I was up at 715a.m. (can’t sleep late here), had peanut butter and toast for breakfast, then decided to go and check out the beach. Marcel came along. I’d like to fix my daughter up with Marcel, he is a sweetheart. How many 23 year olds want to hang out with someone old enough to be their mother? So we hung out on the beach a little bit, swam, then walked down the beach to Fatimas, a bar/restaurant on the beach similar to the Money Bar in Cozumel. We sat and watched the waves coming in while the tide went out. The tide drops amazingly here in a very short period of time. Also, the sand here makes weird noises when you walk on it! Almost a squeaky sound…the sand is abundant and very deep. I checked this strange phenomenon out on the internet…it is called singing or whispering sands. They don’t know exactly why it happens, but it has something to do with the level of quartz in the sand. It must have a lot of it!
I love learning about the people in the house. Marcel has been in Australia where he was certified, and he went to an English language school (he is Swiss German). What the Europeans here apparently do is save up their money, then either quit their job or take an extended leave so they can travel. These are Marcel’s last four weeks, then he goes back to Zurich, tapped out, to start saving again. The same is pretty much true of Leslie (Swiss) and Daniela (German). A great idea, don’t you think?! They have had so many adventures all over the world! They are all so interesting!
The market is an interesting place…they sell bags, wooden art, paintings, fabrics, jewelry, produce, and purses with pictures of Obama on them….all kinds of things. They are very persistent, which does not surprise me. After our trip to Zimbabwe where the guys practically crawled into the bus, this is tame. No worries. Tofo is a place with few cars…everyone walks here. I’m putting in miles a day (no clue how many, but enough, believe me!) up and down steps and steep hills….it is a work out to get anywhere, even to the beach. I should be in great shape by the time I get back. The “kids” are out and about much more often than I am, obviously, their young legs and intact spines give them an edge. I am very happy at how well I am doing, though.
Dinner is pasta tonight. Last night we had Mapata….some kind of leaf, green veggie with coconut milk and peanuts. Actually, quite good. The other big local food is peri-peri sauce, which looks like salsa but is the southern Africa way of making chile peppers. It is quite hot, and most everyone loves it. I haven’t tried it yet. One thing I am doing is drinking a lot of water, yes, me, the water hater. I like it now! I am craving it.
Tofo will be very different in five years I think. The Foundation for the Protection of Marine Megafauna is encouraging the government to support tourism instead of fishing the magnificent whale sharks and manta rays, and if they really do that Tofo will boom as a tourist destination. The whale sharks and mantas are here year round, so tourism is a reasonable solution to fishing and killing these animals. Mozambique’s economy would get more from keeping the sharks alive than from killing them for their fins. Representatives from the foundation are coming to the house this afternoon to tell us more about what they do. We have to learn 60 fish in order to do our fish surveys, and we cannot take the test until the organizers get back. I’m ready for the test. I’ve scheduled a dive for Saturday….we are supposed to get 4 dives a week and 2 ocean safaris, and we’ll have 1 this week, so I’m diving over the weekend. Can’t wait to get out on the ocean and in the water!