juliette's blog

I learned a lot on this trip from listening to Tim, his film crew, and Lek. We went to the Surin Elephant Buffet, where the streets are lined with tables of food, and 200 elephants come in and eat with their mahouts on their backs. Next, we went to the Surin Elephant Round Up. This is a show celebrating elephants, performed every year since 1960. Spent many days at the Elephant Nature Park working with Tim and Lek, learning about the elephants there. I went to two trekking camps, at Tim's suggestion, to observe the treatment of the elephants there.

I am in Thailand filming a documentry with Tim, about Lek and the elephants here in Thailand. Our journey has been great so far. We rescued an elephant named Ratee. She has a broken hip from forced breeding, one fully blinded eye, and one half blinded eye. She has experienced a lot of abuse, so Lek arranged to buy her. We transported her from Surin to the Elephant Nature Park, and so far she is improving greatly. Here is a link to her full story

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/news/0911n2.htm