We left the Indigenous People Lodge early and arrived at the pick up point for the Elephant Valley Project, back in Sen Monorom. From there, a minivan brought us and about eight other tourists further into the jungle. Our schedule was to watch the elephants in the morning and volunteer in the afternoon.

The Elephant Valley Project is a newish NGO in Cambodia. Its goal is to provide suitable homes for captive elephants who are overworked, too old to work further, or injured from work. Currently it has eight elephants and is expecting a ninth very soon. The premise of the project is fairly simple. Captive elephants in Cambodia are typically captured at a young age from the wild. Their treatment in captivity varies, but it’s trending downwards due to modern dangers and types of work (e.g., walking on pavement with tourists on their backs is typically worse than agricultural work in the jungle).

When elephants can no longer work, they then become a beloved inconvenience to their owners. What exactly does one do with an elephant in the backyard? It’s a pretty big mouth to feed. Enter the Elephant Valley Project. They buy the elephants from their owners and give them a home in their 1600 hectare property in Mondulkiri. They employ over 40 people from the surrounding community to care for the elephants and the property and raise revenue from tourists like us, who pay to see the elephants up close.

From our drop off point, we trekked a kilometer or so into the jungle and waited for the elephants and their mahouts (traditional handlers who pretty much look after the same elephant their entire lives). On schedule, they rounded the corner and crossed the river to be bathed.

Pre-bath snack

The elephants each have their own distinct personalities. For example, we saw elephants this morning. Two other elephants in the sanctuary hang out by themselves because one of them is a jerk towards the other four (the remaining two have special care needs and can’t wander too far from base camp). When it was time for their baths, one of the elephants dove into the river and lay on her side, because she loves baths. Another one refused to enter the river and, after being coaxed to do so by her mahout, endured only the bare minimum of bathing time before stomping out.

Note the elephant on its side and the one on the left about to leave

Snorkel action

The rest of the morning was spent watching the elephants eat. The Elephant Valley Project doesn’t encourage interaction between elephants and tourists. It believes in letting the elephants dictate their activities. They go wherever they want, and we move out of the way to accommodate their wishes.

Swatting flies with twig

Throwing dirt on back

Scratching against a tree

Most of the other tourists volunteered at a big promotional event back in town. Cindy and I opted to maximize our jungle time and stayed at the camp. Our volunteer work was watering plants and cutting down a banana tree to feed to an under-nourished elephant. Once we finished, we pretty much had the entire camp to ourselves. We hung out in the lounge to watch the sunset before retiring to our cabin for the evening.

Hanging out

Our cabin