The
Wild Elephants of laos
by Merin Waite
Merin has lived and traveled South East Asia for over a decade.
He has worked as a journalist and educational consultant in
Japan, Thailand and Singapore.
Lang Sang – land of a million elephants
– was once the name of Laos. It is estimated that there
are about 800 left. Off course there never were one million
elephants in Laos but, until fairly recently there were far,
far more than 800. And even these 800 live a precarious existence.
Caught between the demands of villagers cultivating land and
a shrinking forest they are often in direct conflict with human
beings over food. One such area in which the conflict flared
with the death of both an elephant and a villager was Baan Na
– a village situated about 80 kilometres from the capital,
Vietienne. In an attempt to resolve the issue and enable both
the elephants and the humans to live symbiotically an elephant
hide was constructed near the village and, with the assistance
of the German and Canadian aid agencies, a scheme set up to
allow tourists to observe the elephants from the safety of its
towering height.
Baan Na is not a terribly prepossessing village.
Though all the women are engaged in weaving the bamboo baskets
so typical of Laos there is an air of indolence about the place
which can be a bit off-putting to the eager wildlife adventurer
with his compass and stout walking boots. Don’t worry
though, the rather incautious disposal methods for plastic bags
and other debris is usually only around the immediate vicinity
of the dwellings and this proved to be the case here. After
some rather protracted negotiation with the headman ( this is
Laos PDR – some say the PDR stands for Please Don’t
Rush ) I agreed on a price and was provided with a friendly
guide. Once he had secured some victuals for the evening meal
we set off on the first leg of our trip.
The ‘trek’ was very undemanding
and led through degraded forest and rice paddies. Buffaloes
grazed in the fields and cows, with their soothing bells, meandered
from paddy to paddy – a moving, benign symphony. Besides
the trees and the odd bird there was not much to see except
a giant centipede which crossed the path – it can give
a horrific sting – and the dead body of the most beautiful
family of beetles the Buprestidae. This iridescent metallic
green creature in flight is one of the most gorgeous sights
in the world – it is like watching a rainbow dance. Even
in death it is astonishingly beautiful and in Thailand the wings,
which retain their vivid colour, are used to make jewellery
and other artefacts. I picked it up as a souvenir and felt much
more positive about the trip – this was the kind of litter
I was looking for.
After an hour or so we arrived at the hide
situated by a salt lick next a small stream – at least
it was small at this point in the dry season. Due to elephants’
diet, consisting mostly of woody parts of trees and plants,
the creatures do not get sufficient trace minerals hence they
come to salt licks to supplement their everyday meals –
a kind of multivitamin regime. As they tend to frequent the
same place again and again it is possible to be fairly confident
that they will come, if not every night, at least enough to
make the trip and the night spent in the jungle, a good bet.
The aid agencies must have thought so because a hide to observe
elephants needs to be of far sturdier construction than one
from which to look at ducks and the cost must have been proportionately
higher. Climbing up allowed one a view over the surrounding
jungle and fresh breezes made it a pleasant place to sit and
observe the scenery. It was a delightful spot and became even
more so when my guide cooked up an appetizing meal and we sat
in companionable silence munching away on the sticky rice and
freshly made chilly dip.
The elephants, my guide told me, usually came
around eight o’clock if they came at all. So I sat quietly
waiting. Suddenly breaking the background of the jungle murmur,
the insects and odd bird, we heard the unmistakable trumpeting
of a pachyderm. It sent a shiver down my spine and I was happy
to be secure in the tower, the wildness of the place became
very apparent quickly: I was not in a zoo; we were totally at
the mercy of these magnificent creatures protected only by our
inaccessibility. The trumpeting became more frequent and closer,
even the ominous sound of cracking timber, but though I strained
my eyes until well past nine – and we were blessed with
a good deal of moonlight, I couldn’t see, or even imaging
seeing any elephants. Strangely though I did imagine the face
of a giant fox – the night plays strange tricks on the
mind. Fighting fatigue can only go on so long and eventually
I crawled into the sleeping bag and slept fitfully for several
hours. Oddly enough I was rather cold and kept waking up –
every now and then I would stagger up to have a look over the
edge and out into the jungle but nothing greeted me except the
pale moonlight and the face of the giant fox the other side
of the creek. Finally I awoke in the early light of dawn dreaming
I had missed a flight from Heathrow. Nothing seemed further
from that infernal airport than the gently rising sun over the
canopy of the forest and the champagne air of a jungle morning.
After a breakfast of sun-dried pork and buffalo
( I am sure it wasn’t elephant) with sticky rice we descended
from the tower and began our trek back to the village taking
a different route. Along the way we came across plenty of evidence
of the previous night’s activities, dung, broken trees
and great holes in the mud shaped in the hooves of elephants.
It was frustrating to have been so near them but not to have
seen them but these are wild creatures and that is their beauty,
they are not there for us but for themselves. The morning walk
was pleasant anyhow and I sensed that soon we would be back
in the village as we emerged from the semi jungle to cultivated
paddies, albeit rather badly cultivated by the look of them.
I was walking along thinking these thoughts when suddenly my
guide grabbed my arm and whispered ‘sang sang’ (
‘elephant elephant’) I looked dazedly around and
sure enough, at the very edge of the rice field abutting the
jungle, one stately creature strode majestically towards a patch
of woodland. I was wearing a red tee-shirt and my guide indicated
I should take it off as here, in the open we were totally at
the mercy of the animals and red was a colour they could easily
see. Cautiously weaving our way near some scrub we entered an
area near a creek which gave us some cover and waited. The noise
of the elephants now came from two directions and then in front,
visible through the scrub, I saw two beasts not 100 yards away.
It is a strange feeling to be so overawed by wild creature accustomed
as we are to being totally in control of our environment in
relation to the natural world, but overawed I was. What is it
that fascinates us so about animals, but large, wild animals
in particular? I have often pondered this and feel it is almost
as if we are observing some atavistic part of ourselves and
attempting to come to terms with it. The elephants just a hundred
yards away, slow ponderous, with no natural enemies except man.
But now man ‘a forked beast’ cowering in the undergrowth,
reduced to a state where the elephant once more roams at will.
In the reverie of wonder I am interrupted by my guide who is
more concerned with our safety as now, yet another elephant
is passing in front of us. Effectively we are surrounded and
I have visions of being crushed to death by a bull denied its
morning saplings. But the moment passes and the weight seems
to lift from Laotian man’s shoulders. I now begin to see
the necessity of two guides which I had rather suspected before,
I also now realise why the villagers do not take such care in
cultivating these paddies – they are no longer theirs
to cultivate, the elephants have taken them from the farmers
and are now an occupying force. In the background as we leave
the area we can plainly here the elephants feeding, this comes
in the form of great rending and cracking sounds as trees and
shrubs are ripped up and consumed – it is an ominous au-revoir.
The village proves to be very close, just a
few minutes away we reach the flood bridge, a little further
are two calves sitting side by side with a watchful cow eating,
always eating, in the background. No wonder there is a sense
of unease between the villagers and their unwelcome guests.
The elephants are literally in their garden. But the elephants’
garden, playground, home, once so vast, is now being reduced
year by year, week by week, day by day. Maybe the last chance
for them is the present uneasy coexistence that the aid agencies
and villagers have worked hard to set up. It is an effort that
deserves our support for without the tourists and visitors going
to see these creatures and alleviating the evident difficulties
that exist there seems little hope for the pachyderms. They
have nowhere else to go.
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