This morning we went to an elephant sanctuary and fed & bathed several Asian elephants. Decades ago, wild elephants were captured and used as beasts of burden, especially for logging and carrying heavy objects. Since this practice has been outlawed, the captured elephants had nowhere to go. In the wild, elephants travel in herds of several dozen and a single elephant wouldn’t survive in the wild and probably wouldn’t be accepted into an elephant herd. Moreover, these captured elephants would need to relearn how to live in the wild which is usually impossible for animals that have lived in captivity for most of their lifetime, which can be over 80 years!
In order to save these elephants, elephant sanctuaries have been established in Thailand to care for these elephants and induce tourism into the local areas. These sanctuaries are privately owned and cater to tourists but also allow locals to visit the elephants. Many use humane practices to train the elephant with one trainer that is chosen at birth and trains the elephant through adulthood. The elephant and trainer have a very close bond together.
We all enjoyed the elephants and had a blast cleaning them and feeding them. We were also able to feed the other elephants including a baby elephant which was only 18 months old and was still struggling to use its trunk.
After lunch, we traveled to Hell Fire Pass. Hell Fire Pass was created during WWII by Thai civilians and Allied POW’s. During the war, the Japanese Empire needed a railway to connect their troops in Burma to other locations in Southeast Asia. The Japanese had a near unlimited supply of labor after the prisoners captured after invading Singapore. They used their combined force of Dutch, American, New Zealand, Australian and Thai natives to build their railway systems.
The Hell Fire Pass is a particular section of the railway that the prisoners had to blast through thick sections of rock using only hammers and picks and sticks of dynamite. This costed thousands of lives and even more injuries that led to permanent deformities. Walking the path of the train tracks built by POW’s was a truly humbling experience that helped me better understand the brutality behind the Pacific Front of the Second World War.
