First Night and Day at the Elephant Valley Project

    OK, I admit it.  I was scared.  I guess I was not expecting the place to be so JUNGLY!!!  I'd seen the photos of the houses on line, it's true, and I knew, for example, that there would only be electricity from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., but I really wasn't prepared for the dark and the isolation.  I loved my little house from the very beginning, but I was very nervous.  It had a nice red tile floor and recycled planking for walls and a grass roof.  Plus it had a bathroom with a toilet that flushed )even when there wasn't electricity and a shower that usually produced water even when there wasn't electricity.  Coldish water, but that was welcome in the heat.
    After a really good Khmer meal cooked by the chef Tul, I was eager to get myself tucked in under my mosquito net (or, as "the Australians" called it, a "MUZZIE net" before the lights went out.  There were spiders in my house that looked to be the approximate size of our dog Aramis and a shy but large [10-12 inch-long] gecko living there too.  The spiders did make me somewhat uncomfortable, so I named them all "Charlotte" and tried to think of them as pals. [See what years of psychotherapy can do for one?] And I tried to think of the gecko as a pal because I was told they eat the spiders.  SO, me and my pals settled in for our first night, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I wasn't creeped out, I slept soundly, and I don't think anybody bit me.

    And in the morning it was time for ELEPHANTS!!!!  I got all decked out in my prescribed elephant-watching gear.  Socks, sturdy shoes, cap, jacket (it was raining a little), cameras, water bottle, extra strength bug spray, and who knows what else.  Off we headed for "Heaven," one of the valleys some of the elephants live in, quite a trek from the project's center, first up a pretty steep path and then down, down, and down a VERY steep, VERY slippery path.  It was hot and humid, and I puked.  I felt VERY sick, from either the Khmer food, the heat, the excitement, dehydration, or most likely the malaria medication I'd just started taking.  Jack said that it made quite a few people sick, and worse, made their skin ultra-sensitive to sunlight.  I felt like one big nasty heat rash, but vomiting helped and I felt better, especially when I caught my first glimpse of a Project elephant, and it was . . . . pause for dramatic effect . . . .BOB!

    Bob, the only male at the project, more than a little unruly, the only elephant who requires not one but two mahouts to keep him under control, Bob, the only one of the nine elephants we were not permitted to approach.  So, why is Bob so surly?  Could it possibly be because his previous owner pounded on one of his tusks with a hammer every day until the tusk fell out and could be sold for ivory?  That half of his other tusk was sawn off for the same reason?  That he was starved, dehydrated, and chained to a house for weeks in order to make him more submissive??  You decide.      Four other elephants live in "Heaven"--Bob's friend Onion, who finds Bob attractive, but whom Bob only likes "as a friend".  And then there's the Supremes, three inseparable female elephants who are amiable and calm and loved to be pampered with nice baths.  Millot is the Diana Ross (click on the link to view Millot) of the trio--we fed her some let's-get-acquainted bananas--and here are the three luxuriating in their morning bath.