As I detailed last week, our search for a beast of burden/range rider led us to Ayutthaya in the beautiful Thailand. To ElephantStay where Bangkok Bennie assured us we would be able to take an elephant for a test drive before we committed any hard-earned Baht on an unknown.

The hundred-kilometer drive from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, the historical capital of the Kingdom of Siam, took about two hours and left us at the head of a driveway had been cleverly disguised as a major tributary to the nearby river. Our driver piloted the white van down the lane and emerged at the other end dripping clumps of mud and god knows what else.

The test-drive party consisted of Ishya and me along with Ishya’s sister Nui, and nephew, the plucky, resourceful, and disturbingly serene, Peam. We sloshed through the swill to the thatched-roof sala where the other test drivers sat waiting rather impatiently, tapping their watches as we floated our luggage in from the car.

We sat dribbling onto the concrete, introductions were made all around, and the presentations began. First up was Ewa who laid out the welcome mat and assured all of us that we’d have a great time as long as we stuck to the program and followed the rules. Rules like: don’t stick your hand in the tank with thecrocodile fish, which, once we saw the crocodile fish, made perfect sense. Next up was Paul who would be the liaison officer between the visitors and their elephants. Paul, for those of you who remember the TV show Fawlty Towers, is what you’d expect if Basil Fawlty, finally fed up with Sybil’s and Manuel’s incessant disrespect, lit out for the jungles of southeast Asia. For our three day test drive he was to keep us safe and make sure we took proper care of our elephants.

“Right then,” Paul said. “Let’s go meet the ladies!”

So, you know how in the used car lots they have all the cars lined up under a metal-roofed structure to better appreciate the gleam of the paint? Okay, now imagine that structure being twenty feet high with support posts made of six-inch steel pipe sunk three-feet deep in concrete, and, instead of shiny, late-model, pre-owned vehicles, the row along the front is thirty-six tons of steaming, mud caked pachyderm distributed among nine living, breathing elephants.

“Right then,” said Paul. “Ishya and James, meet Pisamy.”

We stepped tentatively forward where Pisamy, a kind of flower supposedly, gave Ishya a nuzzle with her trunk and then snapped it out knocking me ten feet through the air and landing me on my butt in the toxic stew that passes for ground at ElephantStay. 

After the close inspections were completed and I had finished hosing off in water pumped directly from the Chao Phraya River, Paul once again took control.

“Right then,” he said. “Grab some pineapples and keep them coming.” He pointed over to a pile of fruit about twenty feet in diameter and four feet high. “Elephants just love pineapples.”

We all walked over to the pile, picked up a couple of pineapples each, and started back to the elephants.

“Right then.” Paul grinned. “These are elephants, not hamsters. They need to eat!”

Chastised, we returned to the pile and grabbed some more pineapples. We now had four apiece and our arms were bleeding from multiple lacerations.

When an elephant eats a pineapple, I can now say from close experience, it starts by gingerly inspecting the fruit for ripeness, delicately removes the leaves and stalk, and then tosses the whole thing in its mouth and bites down. Pisamy, being blessed with two tusks – rare for female Asian elephants – would stick the pineapple under one tusk, break it in half, and eat each half separately. A true lady, Pisamy. Nevertheless, in about two minutes the eight pineapples were history and Pisamy and the others started in on the leaves.

“Right then! More pineapples.”

We made a total of three trips to the pile and while a few of ours went to the two elephants that did not have drivers, most were munched down by the dainty Pisamy.

After the pineapples, it was time for the first test drive and, out of nowhere, our mahouts arrived, dagger-sharp tawaks in hand. Everybody climbed the boarding ladder, hopped delicately onto their elephants and headed off. We were not so lucky. Pisamy doesn’t like the ladder so we had to – as gracefully as possible – climb up her bent leg, drag ourselves up by gripping her ears, kick our legs over her neck, try not to kick the mahout or his tawak, and settle in just behind her ears.

The seven elephants set off at a lumbering pace down the road and to a boat ramp on the Chao Praya River. Once there the elephants jumped in and played – mostly underwater – as we hung on for dear life and the mahouts laughed at the goofy farang.

Then it was back to the barn, more feed, more grass, and more pineapples. Lots more pineapples.

It was at this point that our dreams of elephant ownership on the micro-farm sailed into shallow waters.

“Uh, Paul,” I asked. “How much does one of these eat in a day?”

“Right then.” He looked skyward in contemplation. “About a hundred kilos.”

I rushed back to the room, logged on to one of the convenient Real-World to American translators available, and discovered that I had to multiply to get the correct amount. I got on Skype and called up Bay Hay and Feed, my favorite store, and asked them how much hay cost by the ton.

I wept.

Then the door opened.

“Fifty bucks a day, minimum.” I sobbed. “That’s if we don’t get any pineapples.” I blubbered. “It would be cheaper to buy a Ferrari.”

“That’s okay.” I think she kind of liked the Ferrari idea. “You couldn’t have paid to ship her to Bainbridge Island anyway. Let’s just have some fun!”

And fun we had. Many of you have had the experience of being on a farm or at a dog park or at a country fair and surrounded by animals. Now turn all of those animals into elephants. The first day is positively surreal. Everywhere you look elephants. Big elephants, little elephants, oh-so-cute baby elephants who love nothing more than to bring their cuteness right up to you and knock you on your butt. Despite the mud – it is the rainy season here – despite the lugging of grass and pineapples and bags of feed, despite having to clean up what the elephants turn that food into in just sixteen hours, it was an absolute blast. You got to feed the elephants, clean the elephants, ride them, and swim with them in the river. You live with elephants.

And it was all for a good cause.

ElephantStay is the tourist arm of the Ayutthaya Elephant Palace and Royal Elephant Kraal Village. The site is centered on the Royal Elephant Kraal where, back in the day, the King would select the elephants for the army, work use, and to send off to the circus. (Just joking about the circus.) The foundation was created to help conserve elephants by keeping them working, training them to earn their keep, and maintaining the system of mahouts that kept elephants employed and valuable. As the wild populations continue to dwindle due to loss of habitat, ironically to pineapple farms in many cases, the continuation of the species will depend in large part to efforts like this to keep them alive by using them as they have always been used: as beasts of burden.

Now some among you might take the tree-hugger outlook that the only good elephant is a wild elephant and that they should all be released into reserves need to consider a couple of things. First, reserves, while noble in concept, usually fail to take one major item into account: that elephants, when confronted with the choice between the prickly jungle vines in the reserve and five-hundred acres of ripening pineapples in the farm right next to the reserve, will always go for the pineapples. Or oil palms or sugarcane or whatever. Second, elephants have been domesticated for somewhere around eight thousand years which is about two thousand years longer than horses. Keeping a small, self-sustaining working population of elephants as part of the larger conservation effort including reserves, private ranches, and zoos, not only makes sense from a conservation standpoint, but from a historical perspective as well.

While I’m pretty sure that none of my ancestors had any dealings with elephants since before the Pleistocene, when you look into the eye of an elephant from an inch away, you can just sense that they and we have spent a long time walking down the same road. Together.

If you’re ever in Ayutthaya stop in at ElephantStay, you can visit for an hour or stay for a few days. Check out their website or Facebook Page to see how the foundation is working to help keep these amazing animals going, and how, even in the modern world, they can still help us.