16. Nov 13th. Elephants and a high speed train

Morning at the elephant centre was quiet.  Judith and I rise and get over to the dining area for breakfast.  Our server shows us the menu and I try and order an omelette with tomato and onions but get this blank stare.  I realize that the omelette just comes the way they prepare it and I try to fix my expectation and explain that I’ll take just a regular omelette.  But the damage is done and she goes and gets English speaking Michael to come and clarify my request.  

This is the chalkboard she uses for her breakfast orders.  She places a hash mark beside the order to keep track of how many items have been ordered.  Today there’s only three of us with Nicholi joining us for breakfast.  As a collector of misspelled words or improper phrasing on foreign signs, this one is a two for one.  

After breakfast we pack our bags ready to go for the 3 hour ride home.  We’ll be leaving at 1:00 for the long and bumpy ride home.  But before then we have elephants to see!

We meet up with one of the mahouts who was carrying fresh banana branches and walk with him up the trail to meet his elephant, Mae Thong Bay.  She’s the oldest of the elephants at the centre at about 56 years.  We find her on the trail and the mahout gives her the bundle of banana leaves and she digs in.

Our Mahout, guide Ken, Judith and me.  It’s only 9:00 am and I’m sweating from the heat.  

The old girl on the trail chomping down on a banana branch.  The elephants enjoy getting tasty treats from the mahouts.  

When some of the elephants came to the centre from al life of captivity, they had no idea how to forage for food from their jungle habitat and had to learn this skill.  They had only known food to be delivered to them for every meal.   

We watch from a respectful distance and then follow the old girl to the watering hole.  At 56 she’s too old for the breeding program.  Her backbone is very prominent and the area above her eyes has also shrunken compared to the younger elephants.  Our guide says that she likes to hang around with the mother and baby elephant and seems to act as the matriarch, a position that someone her age might have in the wild.

As we walk along the path to the watering hole we discover that we are being followed by a few other elephants.  They walk very quietly despite their size.  They have a large fleshy pad on the bottom of their feet that cushions their steps and permitted them to sneak up on us.  We step aside to a parallel path so they can pass.  

At the watering hole it’s interesting to see their personalities.  The matriarch walks in up to her ankles,  takes a drink or two and then steps out of the water.  Apparently she never stays long at the watering hole and we see her turn around to head back up the trail.  The other elephants linger much longer and the 21 year old likes to sits down into the water and blow water over herself.  We watched the elephants enjoy their water break, most not going past their knees.  

We watch the female elephants leave the watering hole and look up to see 3 male elephants coming down the hill to the watering hole.  One of them is really big.  

The big male, Xayo

The three males moved around the watering hole and the younger one dunked right in.  He blew lots of water over his back.  We walked up the hill to the viewing stand where we had lunch the day before and watch the male elephants leave the watering hole.  We next walk a trail to a lookout over where the female elephants can roam by themselves without mahouts, and forage unfettered for the rest of the day.  They tend to wander the large space by themselves at a distance from each other.  The mother Mae Khampheng and baby Noy eventually moved into the forest and we didn’t see them again.  The youngest of the group is an orphaned 9 year old male, Dor Khoun Muang who spent much of his time following the next youngest 24 year old, Mae Bounmy as if he was looking for a friend to play with.   The rest wandered about independently foraging.  

   

The two youngsters.

We left the observation platform and made our way back to the main dining room.  We had a quick lunch, said good-bye and got into the van for the ride back to Luang Prabang.  We have a different driver, but he’s also a speeder and the road has many potholes.  On the trip back, I do manage to take a picture of the prize winning “most people on a motorbike”.

  

We get back to Luang Prabang around 4:00 where we meet up with Noy and Phonsy for the last time.  They are taking us directly to the train station to catch the bullet train to Vientiane.  But we’re early and have an hour to kill.  Judith and I decide to visit our favourite iced cappuccino/mango smoothie cafe at the Indigo hotel.  

With sufficient time killed, we meet back up with Phonsy and Noy and take the 20 minute drive to the train station.  Fortunately Phonsy knew the quickest route to the gate and we clear all the checkpoints and end up at the gate with an hour to spare.  The bullet train is a joint venture between Chinese and Lao companies.  It has cut the time from a 6.5 hour drive to about 2 hours by train and is pretty reasonable at about $2 Cdn.  

Train station.  The front looks empty because the vehicle ramp to this level is not yet open.  Instead we took a small outside elevator at this end of the building from the parking level.  

The waiting area for people ready to board the trains. It’s a huge space.  

We’re carrying all our luggage with us.  There is a baggage place for my large suitcase at the rear of our car, but when I get there, the baggage area is overflowing.   I leave it in the corridor with the rest of the excess luggage and take my seat and the rest of my luggage is placed overhead .   It’s dark, so we’ll be unable to see how fast we’re going.  The ride is very smooth with no rocking that you would normally feel on a train.  And it was super quiet because it is electric.  We were amused by a little girl and her family in the seats beside us.  She spent much of the trip playing peek-a-boo with others on the trip.

Inside seating area of a bullet train.

Tickets are scanned when leaving the station so that if you don’t have your ticket or don’t have the correct ticket you need to get that resolved.  Scanning tickets after you get off creates a bit of a bottle neck. 

Ticket scanning bottleneck at Vientiane station.  There are only two women scanning every ticket holder.  

We get into Vientiane and we’re met by the same guide (Lai) and driver (Mr Kuhn) that we had during our earlier stay.  It’s pretty nice to see familiar faces and I’m glad the tour company works at keeping guides and guests together where possible.  We’re back at the Salana Hotel.  It’s been the best stay so far.  We check in and go to our room.  It’s a single king bed so we go back to the lobby to get us moved to a room with two separate beds.  We had plans to go out for dinner so we left our bags in the room and left it to the hotel to straighten out the room situation. 

Salana Hotel at night

We have a hankering for Indian food.  By now it was 9:15 and we had been told that the local Indian food restaurant that we had eaten at last week might close around 9:30. It’s a half block away, but when we get there, we discover it was open to 10:30 pm.  So far so good.  We look for a table outside, but there’s an unpleasant oder somewhere and we opt for an inside table.  Garlic naan and a mango smoothie is enough of a light dinner for me.  Judith opts for a salad.  When we arrive back at the hotel, they have a new room for us, two rooms down from the room we had in our previous stay.  Luggage is brought to our door and we retire for the night.  We need to be ready by 6:45 to go to the airport make our way to Paske airport in southern Laos.

Finally, a room worth the wait.