Elephant Camp

There are lots of opportunites to do activities in and around Luang Prabang. After much deliberation we decided to visit the Elephant Camp and do a trek the next day. We chose these activities because the company employ many people from a local village and some of the profits go to this village to help with schooling and health care. We were to spend the day with Mahouts, who are people who train elephants. We naively thought that the elephants would have a lot of freedom as the company spoke of how the elephants had been rescued from logging. It was indeed true that the elephants were better treated than when they were subjected to logging but still they are tied up when not moving and they carry tourists everyday. I personally did not enjoy riding an elephant ( and you are probably wondering why we did but as I said, we thought we were making a good choice) and felt very guilty the whole time. It is, however, a catch-22 situation. If you don't rescue these elephants, they will be subjected to logging which abuses not only them but the environment. It is impossible to let them go as they are domesticated and will be caught by someone else. Man and elephant compete for space in Laos and it appears that man is winning. However, as tourists we do not help as we are creating a demand for elephant riding! We also had to remember that the livelyhood of many families was reliant on this camp and the elephants. Laos was once called lan Xang which means 'Land of a Million Elephants'. It would be lovely to see these amazing creatures roaming wild again but this seems bleak at present. We have no answer to how to better this situation but in hindsight we would rather find alternative ways in supporting the local communities.


Stephen stood in the poo!


Washing the elephants.