Since the 2nd day, we have been getting afternoon showers.  Like CRAZY down pours for an hour or two.  There is a temperature change and just before the sun sets we cannot see the mountains that surround us as they are covered in mist and low laying clouds.  The air is green as if we see the world with green sepia lenses.

Every morning pick ups come and need to be unloaded- all 3 groups helped unload a watermelon truck.  We formed 2 long lines and would pass what seemed like 1000’s of little watermelons and fill the empty bins.  Another group was washing the watermelons and pumpkin that were to be cut up later that day for elephant food.  It was easy work – in the shade and many hands made for light work.

We got a break from work in the morning and all piled into vans to drive to a neighboring school.  It is almost across the river from ENP but we had to go up to a bridge to get over.  All 40 of us piled out of the van into a big concrete play yard surrounded on 3 sides by 2 story class rooms.  The principle of the school spoke to us and told us that this was a special school for local students and hill tribe children.   There were 200 children K-12.

All of the children learn a trade (or many trades) while they simultaneously have their academic classes.  Most of the 1st floor buildings were broken into rooms or small businesses: coffee shop, cookie shop, foot massage, dance, musical instrument, jewelry making and river raft guide.

The kids would come and grab us and bring us to their classrooms.  It was so sweet – we saw the kids who were playing instruments during the blessing ceremony.  We were there about 2 hours.

We came back for lunch- all of the day trip people are here for lunch.  Any where from 50-100 people come for the day.  It gets really loud when they are here and we all have commented that we like the breakfasts and dinners better when it is just us.  Spoiled already.

After lunch we get about an hour to go back to our rooms, most of the days we fall asleep with our little tent fan on us.  We all sleep amazingly well- most of us are NOT used to this much physical labor.  I would like the thank Mom’s and my trainer Roxy for all those awful workouts we complained thru.  You should see me Roxy- a virtual rock star working like a day laborer!   Thank you!!

We met again at 1:00PM for our afternoon task.  Eck (one of our 3 volunteer coordinators) said our Team A task was to pick up banana plants.  Hmmmm we had no idea what that meant, the 11 of us just blindly piled into the back of a pick up truck and were whipped around in back for about 45 minutes up and down tiny narrow mountain roads.   The scenery is beautiful- green, so green it almost hurts our AZ desert eyes.   We would pass thru traditional villages with a temple, small wooden raised houses and always one big stucco house with a big gate around and a dish for tv.

We pulled off the road into about an acre of felled banana trees.  Some were piled 3-4 high.  Personally I looked at it and saw it for what it was, rat, spider and snake infested.  Our task was to pull off a stalk- they were about 3′-6′ long about 12″-18″ wide and peel the outer layers off.  Underneath they were filled with hot fluid and were squishy.  It was actually very gross work- our gloves were soaked in this yucky fluid from the trees, the trees were full of fire ants.  We would have have to put the banana logs on our shoulder to bring to the truck therefor our clothes were covered.  We had to fill the pick up truck- we piled into another pick up that was brought to haul us home.  We all were sweaty and dirty.  At one point a girl in our group Laura casually leaned over to me and said “Mae’s leg”, crawling up here leg was this snake/centipede 3″ long thing.  I casually reached over and flung it out the back of the truck before she could freak out.  All ninja like-

We got back in time to quickly take showers and change for the talk by the founder of ENP Lek.  WOW, I mean WOW.  What an amazing person.  You know how we are told that 1 person can make a difference……….but sometimes in my dark heart I think “so much to do, change is so very hard”.  Lek is one of those rare individuals who has made an amazing difference for the life of elephants in Asia.  She had just returned from Burma trying to get legislation passed to help the plight of elephants.

She showed a video- I won’t go into detail, but it was the most awful video I’ve personally ever seen.  Lek has video taped the barbaric practices used to “train” elephants.  Let me tell you- not ONE of them even remotely was humane.  If you see an elephant outside of its wild habitat it has been tortured.  Tortured horrible.  Period.  She is making it her mission in life to change these horrific practices and to give hope to the elephants.

There is hope- ENP is a model that is now being used by a number of former trekking companies.  Instead of the tourists riding on the backs of elephants they get to do what we do here: walk with them, feed them, pay to work with them for them.

There is a newer girl here- she was rescued about 4 months ago.  Her owner abandoned her tied by chains to a tree in the jungle.  By the time the forest rangers found her she had lost over 700LBS and was near death.  Today she is back to her regular weight but is damaged.  Who knows if it was from her initial training or from being tied in the forest.  She and her mahout are always away from the other family groups, she likes to be near them, but not to near.  Often we see here swaying back and forth, a form of self soothing.  Because of Lek she has safe place to spend the rest of here days.

YEA!  Got a photo to upload!Sitting here in the early morning “chill” listening to the elephants trumpet their excitement for getting out of their enclosures!  Well we survived the corn………barely.  We met at the meeting place and our 11 person group with a volunteer leader One loaded into the back of this HUGE truck.  As we all stood in the bed of the truck I had to reach up to grab onto the top most wrong of the bed.  We bounced along a paved road for about 20 minutes then went off roading along irrigated fields of corn and rice for about another 10 minutes.

We all piled out- were given a machete/scythe thing and told we needed to cut the stalks at their base, put them in piles of 30 stalks each and that we would need 500 of these piles.  Yes folks thats 15,000 stalks of hand cut corn.  And of the 11 in our group 4 of us are either close to or over 50!  We all had the attitude- lets get this done and over with.  So into the corn we went.  Now we also had about 5 ENP (Elephant Nature Park) mahouts with us who were helping.

We all quickly got into a rhythm, bend, cut, bend cut, pile……….repeat.  Our shoes were caked with mud.  Luckily there were not any fire ants like the group yesterday encountered – just a couple spiders now and then.  We would walk to the trucks (there were 2 we had to fill) and grab water every 30 min or so.  To say it was hot is an understatement – but it was oddly fulfilling.  The stalks that we cut fed the elephants at ENP for 1 day.  This task has to be done EVERYDAY 365 days a year.   And as they add elephants so must they add the number of stalks that will need to be cut.

At about 11:30 we broke for lunch.  In Asia dotting the irrigated fields every acre or so are these raised bed platforms, about the size of 2 king sized mattresses.  They are open sided with a thatched pitched roof.  We walked with our lunch of noddles and fried rice in big containers and a yummy huge egg omelet.  The break was welcomed.  We all worked hard- I know that I have complained about the youth of today- but let me tell you- these kids can work!

Most of these kids here are young enough to be our children- most are in college or just out of high school.  They are taking a week out of their lives to come and do REAL manual labor (ok, 2X a day for 2-3 hour stretches so not like the locals work), pay money to do this manual labor (we paid about $350USD per person per week for this, it included transportation to/from Chiang Mai, a bed, 3 vegetarian meals a day) and do so happily.  Our generation came to Thailand at their age to go to the beach and hang out!

We were a sorry group and slow moving after lunch loading the trucks with the 500 bundles of corn.  That really was the worse part.  We finished about 1:00, no major injuries we all had cuts and scrapes from the cut corn stalks that are like daggers rising from the earth and nicks from the machetes.  No stitches were required!

We then had to climb up the side of the HUGE truck them jump over the edge to the top of the pile of stalks, crawl our way across the pile to find a place to sit. Zach and Max sat on the roof of the truck.  We headed out- the moms of the group thinking “this is REALLY unsafe” the lawyer mom in the group “this is really unsafe and that disclaimer we signed surely did not include this”!  We barreled down the dirt paths, often times with inches to spare between us and the irrigated fields.

Our reward was a stop at a 7-Eleven to get snacks and/or ice cream.  We a sight we must have been, covered in mud- red faced from the heat!  We have a mother and daughter in our group from LA (Caroline just graduated from high school and this is where she wanted to go) Caroline needed the bathroom.  I happened to be in the back of the store when they came out of the back area very confused, with the bathroom that is.  I asked if it was a squatty potty?  They had no frame of mind to answer so I had them show me- and it was a squatty potty!  They are usually porcelain rectangles with 5″ square pads with a big opening, about 6″ off the ground.  You have to squat on the square pads and go.  Once you get used to them they actually are nice- but very confusing at first!

We rode back to ENP mostly quiet broken by calls of “duck” if we went under a low hanging tree

The showers we all took were some of the best of our lives.  If you cut corn you are done for the day so we took a little nap did our favorite past time- watched the elephants.

The kids are getting along great- they all 3 are working like troopers.  We threw some cards in last minute and the boys play cards with the other kids here on and off all day.  The boys had one big fight- we can hear everything as our walls are open on top to each other and the walls are bamboo thin.  Apparently both Max and Zach liked the same girl.  Max was furious and was calling Zach a “man whore”.  And much worse.  But they woke yesterday morning as if nothing had happened.

So we were wrong………our duty of the day was “elephant poo”.  After a yummy breakfast of toast (cooked over an open flame/bbq), fruit and oats we headed over to the meeting place to find out we were not indeed on the dreaded corn task……but rather elephant poo.  Corn would be for tomorrow.

Our team of 11 headed out with our trusty leader Say and Won (he is here from Burma learning about the program- the program director is actually in Burma right now meeting with legislators trying to advocate for the elephants just as she does here in Thailand).  We were led to a big tool area- a young girl would check out equipment as it went out.  We all grabbed either shovels or rakes.  We walked a short distance to the 1st of 5 elephant barns that held 5 pens each that we would be cleaning out.

They are quite big- so first you had to get all of the half eaten corn stalks raked to the door then get the HUGE poos to the pile as well.  We would work as teams, Laura (from OH) and I were a great team…..I would rake, she would use her shovel to scoop and I would help guide the pile-o-poo-and-corn stalks to a little dump truck.

Our work got slower as we approached hour 3, but we got it all cleared.  The elephants are put into these “pens” at night for their protection- they are quite large like 40’X40′.

After we all went and took what would be the 1st or 2nd of many showers of the day- for you see, when slinging big piles of poo you often hit someone.  Luckily no one was hit in the head but we were covered!

Lunch was welcomed, the day trip people eat lunch with us- our buffet doubles in size as there are about 50-60 day people everyday.  Everyone this week is very nice- they all seem to be having a good time and all are good workers.  After lunch we had a bit of time before we had to meet at 2:00 for our next task:  elephant walk.  Didn’t know what that meant, but did know a nap sounded really good!

The elephant walk was, well a walk around the property.  We were introduced by Say to all the elephants.  Most are in family groups of 3-6 but there are about 4 girls that like to be by themselves.  They are usually older and blind.  We got to go up to about 6 of them in various areas of the park to touch, pat and photo opp with them.  I don’t think it could ever get old, they are so beautiful.  They often have baskets of fruit in front of them (elephants are vegetarians) and they all like to be hand fed.

It was blazing hot while walking around, and like the elephants we would go from shade spot to shade spot.  There are 5 elephants here with land mine wounds, the worlds cutest baby who is about 2 years old who was throwing a total temper tantrum from the boot on one of his front feet from his foot being damaged in a trap.  His manhoot was so patient, the baby would shake his head and try and take the straps off, dance around the manhoot, finally he was able to take one of the straps off-he looked triumphant as the manhoot took it away and tucked it into his pocket.  A battle won……but sadly not the war.  He will wear his boot for years as the wound is still healing after over a year.

We walked about for about 2 hours.  Never tiring of seeing these beautiful animals.    At 4:00 we met at the meeting point to go wash the elephants.  A daily task that is much loved.  All 30 of us met-we grabbed a bucket and started walking towards the river.  The 3 elephants were slowly making their way to the water, one had a broken back injury from logging so walks with a lopping gate.  It takes her awhile to get from point A to B but it is amazing to just watch them.  Once the elephants were in the water we all divided up between them and started throwing water up onto their HUGE bodies.  Careful not to get water into their eyes- we could tell they were enjoying the cooling water all the while munching on little watermelons.

After we had some free time – we often end up on the patio overlooking the paddocks- it is many acres of open land dotted with elephants.  There is always one or two elephants being fed and most are happy to help.  It’s amazing how dexterous their trunks are.

Dinner was accompanied by a torrential down pour that lasted over an hour.  Of course Max and Zach went running out into it- the elephants had been put away for the night, their pens have high roofs and are open on all sides, the rain must have felt as good to them as those of us getting rained on.  There was a noticeable drop in temperature after the rain-almost cool!

The boys have started a card table- during the day and at night they have anywhere from 2-8 people at their table playing card games.  Learning new ones and playing the oldies but goodies.  We lost electricity a couple times during the evening-kids just kept playing.  Rob and I went up for what most likely will be a nightly foot/Thai body massage.  The boys played soccer again and last night Zachary twisted his ankle, today totally fine.  Youth wasted on youth.  Robs turn was tonight, not only swollen but black and blue.

There is only internet in the eating area- and the more people about the worse the signal gets.  So everyone is forced to curtail their on line time.

A disclaimer- pictures are taking FOREVER to load………might not be any for some time.  We were picked up by a van yesterday right on time at 8:00AM.  We got up at 7:00, repacked and met for a beautiful breakfast outside by the pool.    There were 2 families from Germany with 3 small kids (all under 10) and after eating I went up to them and said “it does get better!  Our teenagers sleep in their own room and can go off exploring by themselves”.  The one mom got tears in her eyes- it can be exhausting traveling with young children- but the reward is that you will have life long world ambassadors who love the pull of travel and are not afraid of the exotic.

Arrived at the Elephant Nature Park after about a 90min drive climbing up into the mountains that circle Chiang Mai.  We dropped our luggage at our meeting point as the rooms were still being cleaned and our driver showed us where we would meet in about an hour.

The park in addition to hosting week long visitors like us, also have 1/2 day and full day programs.  On the ride up here we watched a video produced by National Geographic about the  founder of the park- a Thai woman who has for over 30 years swam against the current stream of traditional elephant care and training.  While the Thai’s worship elephants, they also have a history of cruel training methods that are truly horrific.  At the park her goal is to educate about these intelligent majestic worlds largest animals.  There are 44 elephants here, all come here abused- many of them are female and blind as to poke their eyes is one of the ways the trainers use to try and control these animals.  There is no riding on elephants here at the Park as those cruel days are over for these few elephants.

They roam the grounds with their trainers in huge areas.  Only the girls and bulls are separated as the males right now adolescents and naughty.  The day visitors were lined up along the raised platform feeding the elephants from big laundry baskets filled with pumpkin, watermelon and corn (the elephants eat whats local and in season too!).  As we stood behind a painted red line we would reach out a piece of food and the elephants would with their trunks grab the food place it in their mouth and come back for more.  The trunk is soft at the point it picks up the food- so very amazing.  All the while the elephant watches you with an eye that seems almost comical for the size of the body- yet so very deep and thoughtful.  Beautiful.

We ate lunch with the day people, our van full of people ate together, there was an American girl here for her 2nd week, she graduates from HS next week, a german girl who just finished her Masters degree and will be traveling for about 6 months in Asia.  And a Norwegian  girl who also just finished school and is traveling until her money runs out.  There was a LONG buffet with about 25 dishes- all vegetarian with either plain or fried rice.  It all was excellent!

After lunch we met with all the new weekly visitors- there are 32 of us from around the world.  We are not the oldest but- close!  We played a “game” where we went around the circle and had to name everyone- one person being added at a time.  Not fun for those of us who have a problem memorizing names- but we now know everyones name.   Then we got our 3rd safety talk about the balance the Park has with visitor safety and letting the elephants be as free as they can be.  It’s a fine line- when an elephant has a bad day, the consequences can be significantly higher  then if say, a dog has a bad day.  Speaking of dogs there are over 400 at a shelter here too-150 cats and 2 monkeys.

As we sat down, an elephant family was below us walking under us toward the river, the largest ones would stop to rub agains the wooden columns- slowly swaying the whole structure.  No work for us today-we next got to go to our rooms- as told it is basic, like no need for screens on the window as the roof is open on the sides to the elements.  Our whole bathroom is one big open air room- basic but will do!  1st thing I did was remove the 2 blankets from our bed so that we would only have a top sheet if needed under our mosquito net.

We had about 30 min to unpack a bit then we met again to find out our work group.  We are in work group A, which means we get to get the most dreaded job out of the way the 1st day- cutting grass with machetes until we fill a truck- we will have jobs in the AM, then lunch then PM jobs then dinner.

Before dinner Max found out that there is a nightly soccer game that takes place in one of the paddocks.  Rob and the boys played against about 3 Thai people- seemed like every-time i’d look out on the field Rob and the boys would be doing push ups.  So confused, I thought they were playing soccer………come to find out they had to do push ups oveytime the other team scored.  Which was a lot……Rob was literally soaking wet when he came up for dinner- looked like he just stepped out from a shower-

Dinner was as yummy as lunch- even the boys are loving the food.  After dinner there was a blessing ceremony by a local Shaman.  There were about 40 people in the room sitting on the ground on little 2′ square pillows.  There was a little 6 piece band of local kids about 12 years old playing traditional instruments.  Very sweet.  The Shaman pulled 4 people up from the ground- our group leader made Mae go up there and for the next 30 min the Shaman chanted and sprinkled water on the 4 girls.  When he finished the 3 grandmas in the group tied little white strings on each of our wrists.  We went up to them one by one, they would tie on the cord then we both would join our hands, place them on our forehead, bow and say thank you in Thai.  It was very beautiful and touching- we were being blessed for our past wrongs done to us, the Shaman  collected them from all of us in the room thru the 4 girls representing us- he placed the “wrongs” in a 1′ square little boat made of mostly beautiful flowers.  After, it was set down the river- taking all of our pain and transgressions against us with the “boat” down the river.

The room we had the blessings in also doubles as a Thai massage/ foot massage place at night.  We all took advantage of it- felt great and a fantastic way to end the day.  There are not many lights on the grounds so you either use your phone flashlight or a real one to make your way back to your room.  Rob was snoring in about 3 minutes, I read for about 10.  Then passed out.  It actually got “cold” in the night- I had to crawl under the top sheet at one point.

These photo’s ARE taking forever- seems like they post much faster on Instagram- so if you like you can see photo’s at least while we are here at ENP on

Instagram:   jillannthomas

We were welcomed after our many flights with fresh tea and towels to wash our faces and hands- we dumped our bags in our rooms, quickly either took showers or jumped in the pool then set off to explore.  It was about 3:00PM Sunday when we finally got out and about.

Gave all the kids $1000 Baht (about $30USD) and hit the streets.

1st order of business was to get foot massages or in Max’s case, neck and back massages 30 min/$3USD.  They use these wooden sticks to rub all the knots out of your feet.  When you flinch or pull away the grandma smiles, and points to the part of your body that the pain corresponded with- felt great!  Most of us then got fresh fruit smoothies- ice included right away…….I can report everyone was fine, no one got sick.

Max purchases art where ever we travel- it’s been his thing since he was like 3, this is the artist who painted his latest acquisition.  Our hotel is located with in the walls of the old city- you can see it behind Max- along our street was a weekly market that only happens on Sundays.Temples are on most blocks- here is Max photo bombing us- creep0!!!  Tomorrow (Monday May 25) we get picked up at 8:00AM to go to the elephant sanctuary- internet is supposed to be spotty so hopefully I can post- fingers crossed

Wow, after 4 flights, meeting up with Sue in LA, loosing Sue in Taipei, finding her again in Bangkok (she had inadvertantly booked on a flight that wasn’t ours) we arrived in Chiang Mai!  All of us and all of our bags!!!

PHX-LAX (1.5 hours), LAX-Taipei, Taiwan (14 hours), Taipei-Bangkok (3 hours), Bangkok- Chiang Mai (1 hour)…….will post again on the other side of the Pacific!  Our friend Sue will be joining us in LA from OK, she will join us for the elephant part of the trip.  She almost got stuck in Oklahoma City- but it looks like she will make it!

We got our 1st one graduated last night!  Here is a beauty from 1983 at our graduation………..awwwwwww

This is Rob, Zach and Mae setting up their equipment before their 1st tank dive on Saturday.  Max was there too getting ready and I was helping everyone, but not diving as my ear was still plugged from our pool dive earlier in the week.  It was a beautiful day at the lake- the kids were very excited and it was so fun watching them come up from their 1st tank dive.  When you are doing these pool and open water dives you are practicing skills that are needed when diving- often what you would do in an emergency situation.   The kids were all excited when they saw a couple fish and a crawdad…… they are going to loose their minds when we are diving in Thailand!

We will be diving on the island of Ko Tao in Thailand, Rob and I were certified for our honeymoon in Belize 25 years ago in June.  I know, you may be asking yourselves how on earth?  25 years?  I know, we were wee ones when we tied the knot.  We are getting re-certified and the kids are getting certified for the 1st time.   Spent Mother’s Day afternoon doing the classroom portion- and on Wednesday we were in the pool doing our 1st dive.  It was fun to see how excited the kids were to just be in the pool- wait until they see the real thing!   We still have our open water dives to do- they will take place at Lake Pleasant, which by the weather forecast may not be to pleasant this weekend.