Kuala Gandah elephant sanctuary

Yesterday I visited the Kuala Gandah elephant sanctuary. This is a place that I’ve heard many people raving about, but had never been to. My friend Kate had her sister’s family staying, so we had six excited children with us to make the trip worthwhile.

Unfortunately, there was no information given by the elephants’ keepers, although there may have been some on display somewhere. It all had something of a feel of a circus, with “Next activity, feeding the elephants!” announced over the PA system. The elephants were all chained to the ground by at least two of their ankles, with only a couple of inches of movement allowed. However, hand-feeding them with fruit proved a big hit with the children and the keepers kept an eye and showed the kids what to do.

The largest two elephants were then taken off to give rides to visitors, the keepers sitting on their necks steering by poking them in the backs of their heads with narrow metal sticks. This horrified me, as it is quite possible to lead such a tame elephant by a rope. The rides lasted all of about twenty seconds, but again the children were delighted, especially those who had never been here before.

The final activity proved a bit too daunting for all except Anna – riding an elephant into the river then being dumped into the water as it plunged for a swim or a roll. To keep Anna company, I joined in with this one, but to be honest, the highlight was swimming in the river rather than sitting on the poor elephant. All of the Anna’s brothers and cousins joined us and we spent a wonderful hour or so swimming and playing in the brown water of the jungle river.

My initial feeling was that this place was offering little to the elephants. However, a bit of research has shown me that the foundation is mainly concerned with removing elephants from areas where their natural habitat has been destroyed and transferring them to national parks and reserves. Unfortunately, this wasn’t made clear at the time. Nor was the future of the elephants who were resident at this sanctuary, seemingly with the sole purpose of entertaining tourists. It set me to thinking about the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage I visited near Nairobi. There, keepers stand with the animals, explaining how they look after them, how the programme of care changes as the elephants mature, how they are eventually released into reserves or a protected and limited (but large) area, in which they can live wild. Everyone loved watching the youngest being bottle fed and enjoyed looking in on the bedrooms where the keepers slept with them. I think there may have been an opportunity to pat the babies on their heads, but that was about it. Yet the place was teeming with visitors. It isn’t necessary to make a circus there. However, my real sadness was not from the activities at Kuala Gandah but from the way the elephants were chained, prodded and yanked about. Yes, I know this was essential for visitor safety, but without such close proximity it wouldn’t have been necessary at all.

The organisation’s website isn’t particularly endearing, as it rants about “the world's 10 BIGGEST CULPRITS that keep on warming up the fragile world and yet blames Malaysia for supposedly cutting down all the forests.” I had heard that a past volunteer had caused problems, but didn’t expect to see this on the website:
“all volunteering & internship opportunities have since been stopped for an indefinite period as a result of various problems caused by an insensitive, ignorant & " ugly " North American.” The authors are also at great pains to make us appreciate how “thankless” and dangerous the work of the sanctuary is. Too see more, take a look at http://www.myelephants.org/ .

I had a wonderful day out, thanks in great part to the company, but I would only recommend this to families with children. Adults might have to put their gut feelings aside, but it’s definitely better than a zoo and it's quite an experience to get so up close and personal with these amazing animals. I'm glad I went to see it for myself and very grateful to my lovely friends for taking me along.

The sanctuary was further than I expected from KL, but the last few kilometres were bliss, giving me a view of the Malaysia I love and have missed – the narrow roads winding through the lush greenery, wooden houses with children playing outside, the rich smells of the earth and leaves and flowers, fruits and fried things for sale at the roadside, insects chirruping, the warm humid air soft and sweet, enveloping us as we arrived.