Just Another Day Walking With a Caravan of Elephants
Just Another Day Walking With a Caravan of Elephants
Rice and Beef in Sayaboury
You wake up pretty early when you’re camping in Laos with a caravan of elephants.
I had traveled halfway around the world and spent countless hours in planes, buses, cars, and tuk-tuks to meet the Elephant Caravan in Sayaboury, where I was going to walk for a couple days alongside the giants to photograph their splendor and raise awareness for their conservation. The Asian elephant is endangered in Laos and the likelihood of them disappearing completely in the next 30-40 years grows larger every day.
By the time I reached the caravan, their numbers were growing rapidly, somewhere around 40 mouths to feed by November 15th (midway through the nearly two-month trek to Luang Prabang from Paklay). Many of these mouths were walking anywhere from 7-12 miles a day in the baking 100 degree Fahrenheit heat, requiring quick and hearty food a minimum of three times a day. Given the remote location and the lack of cooking facilities (or any facilities for that matter) this was quite the undertaking. The team of cooks rose well before the sun came up to make sure there was enough sustenance for the whole team to make it through the day.
On the third morning, I heard the generator crank up in the pre-dawn darkness and slid out of my tent. By the light of one or two fluorescent tubes, the women were preparing loads and loads of sticky rice, lovingly tossing it in baskets made of bamboo until it was cooked to perfection, then wrapping large packets of it in plastic wrap for easy grab-and-go consumption. A man was hacking away at a large cut of meat on the stump of a tree, making cubes of beef that would be simmered in oil and ginger to eat with the rice. Chilis ground into a wonderful spicy—very spicy—paste would accompany the simple meal, sating everyone but the elephants (who were in the forest grazing, not to worry) for their long day.
As the milky sun peeked through the mist, the crew laid down a few large, colorful mats for everyone to sit down on together. I stirred Nescafe powder into my cup of hot water and looked on as the mahouts, biologists, conservationists, educators, and performers emerged from their tents with the sun and knelt down to tear open the carefully packaged sticky rice, sharing communal plates of beef and carefully squeezing their rice into the perfect vehicle for the beef/chili combination to make it into their bellies. Another day begins.