Elephant Festival Laos

At the Wat Phou Festival in Champasak, Jim and I met an enegergetic Portuguese guy who told us about the Lao Elephant Festival.

Wait.
Elephant?
Festival?!
Sold!

From the Kong Lo Cave we headed towards Vientiane via an 8 hour bus ride, where we got on the most horrible 14 hour night bus journey of our lives. We knew we were in for it the moment we stepped on. There was of course no air con, the seats were broken and didn’t recline, and our knees were jammed tightly against the seats in front of us. The middle isle was packed (as usual) with locals sitting on little plastic chairs, which made it impossible to stand or stretch our legs. The bus route consisted of dirt roads laced with potholes the entire way, which resulted in a painstakingly slow pace. The windows remained opened at all times, caking us in dust and drying our throats. And then came the vomiting. Just at the night fell upon us, locals next to us started vomiting into plastic bags (which they kept until we stopped hours later). Meanwhile, we had convinced our new friends, Bridget and Zaf, to change their plans and make the journey the day after us!

Beneath the dust and the vomit, there was something about the experience that was beautiful to me. It was a lesson in learning to relax, finding comfort where there is none, and appreciating the fact that this is not part of my daily life. When we finally arrived in the isolated town of Sayaboury, we were exhausted, and we hadn’t yet booked accommodation. Despite the tourist office’s warning that all guesthouses were full, we wandered around with our packs before we finally walked back to the office and asked them to arrange a homestay. The homestay ended up being an amazing experience, and our accommodation was right next to the festival. Our family didn’t speak any English, but we managed to communicate through sign language, laughing, and a few words of language exchange conducted through pointing to objects. Apparently, over 600 local families opened their doors for homestays during the festival.

This was the 6th annual Elephant Festival in Laos, and it is held in partnership with a local elephant conservation center. The festival, according to it’s website, aims to raise awareness about the critical protection and conservation of elephants in Lao (which is known as “the land of a million elephants”), as well as to celebrate the relationship between human and elephant. It was an incredible experience to be so close to so many elephants. They were so tame, gentle, and playful…and they often looked as though they were smiling!

Manhout is the term given to those who ride elephants, and it was especially interesting to watch them interact with their animals. In Laos (and other places around the world) manhouts often spend long periods of time away from home, working in remote forests with their elephants where the elephants are used for land clearing and logging.

It was a surreal experience to spend three days observing and being among elephants in the middle of Laos. I love animals, and to see such magnificent creatures in this setting was a complete awesome. Every night after the elephants went to bed, there were festivities at the main stage. Jim and I, along with thousands of others, sat and watched performances while sipping local beers. We eventually got to meet up with Bridget and Zaf (who also had a miserable bus journey!) and enjoyed our time with them. Everyday we ate a place we called “the cement restaurant,” where we met an English speaking Lao man whose daughter lives in Brooklyn and attends FIT. Small world! (he was so great… he insisted on taking a picture of the two of us and emailing it to her).

One afternoon, Jim and I hitchhiked to a reservoir nearby, which although wasn’t as big as we thought, made for an peaceful afternoon adventure. By the end of each day, we were were exhausted; between the heat and the dust and the crowds, we were happy to say hello to our pillows, usually no later than 11.

After saying goodbye to our homestay family at dawn, we headed to the bus station with our packs, our sights set on Luang Prabang… the bity city! Stay tuned.

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