Continuing the Wild Goose Chase

After having failed miserably at finding anything about elephants on my first day in Ban Don, I headed out to the area for a second time, but still with not enough information about how to actually find a place that looks after elephants as though they are dignified, wild animals that should be rather free of human interference and in environments suited to their size. Of course, if I really found such a place, it would be unlikely that I would see any elephants because they would be out roaming in their habitat, acting like elephants. They wouldn't be in town shopping for grass or sitting in the local pub. But I did really want to know that elephants sent up here to live out the later years of their lives were actually treated well.

So I hopped on the bus and headed out for a second time to the Ban Don area, in particular looking for the Yok Don National Park. I had seen a sign alerting people to the presence of the park on the road the previous day, so I figured I would get off there and have a go. This was a typical sort of thing that I might do, actually. I get a hare-brained kind of idea and figure that in a countryside where I can't speak much of the language and I have no expectation of the people I meet being able to speak my language, with thousands of square kilometers of space around, I can just hop off a bus and wander around in the expectation that I will find exactly what I'm looking for. And yet, when I enact those sort of half-baked plans, things tend to turn out quite well. And often, I DO find what I'm looking for. I don't exactly know how it works that way, but it seems to.

As we passed the spot with the sign, I got off the bus. I don't know how I would have managed it if someone else hadn't been getting off at the same place, but I'm sure it would have been possible to pull the foolish visitor card and gone, “Oh, Yok Don, can I get off here?”, making some kind of flap about it and getting let off without too much consternation directed my way.

The sign pointed down a side road and it suggested that the park was 900 meters away. Tra-la-la la-la, I headed down the road. I passed by a number of shacks and houses and over a river. I thought I had gone quite a bit farther than 900 meters though. I was just on the point of giving up and abandoning my quest, when I found the spot advertised on the sign. Now... Was it what I was really looking for?

I went to the entrance and there was a ticket area. And then it seemed to be much like the village of Ban Don, except much smaller. And there were no elephants, not even waiting for eager tourists. But there were a bunch of other visitors to the spot. That was more promising. Other visitors is a good sign.

This very small community was also sitting right at the edge of the river, which was really raging this day. I guess there had been a lot of rain the previous night. There was also a little collection of rope and bamboo bridges, but much less extensive than in the village of the previous day.

The river at this point was also quite large.

Then I went and investigated the very small village. There were little huts, where I presumed people live, but they didn't look lived in.

And then I found something interesting. Under a shelter, there were two of what looked to be elephant graves. Perhaps I was on to something. If I had found a place where they loved elephants enough to bury them with seeming honour, could this be something of a sanctuary place for old elephants?

And then the rain started. I went to the restaurant to wait it out, and get some lunch. In the restaurant, I was served by a woman who also talked to me a bit. I asked her if there were elephants around, and she said, “No. Sorry.” This was not abruptness on her part. Her English just wasn't strong. She waved that they were off in the jungle. Another good sign. Then a man who seemed to be kind of in charge of the operation of this area came up to me and he asked me what I thought. I asked him also about the elephants. He told me there were four that were attached to this place, but they were off on a trek and would be back around five o'clock. I said that was too bad. I also asked him how they were treated. He told me that during the day the elephants were in the village, but at night they would be off in the jungle across the river.

So it seemed that I would not be seeing any elephants, but I was more comfortable that elephants brought here for retirement were actually finding a reasonable life. Then Huong the waitress came back and talked to me some more. I asked her about Yok Don National Park. She told me it was vast and extended into Cambodia. I had read that there were lots of protected animals in the park, among them the elephants as well as tigers and a couple of other animals. I asked her about the huts in the village here. She told me that visitors can stay in them. She asked if I was going to stay. I would have, but my stuff was all back in Buon Ma Thuot. When I explained that I would have to go and get my stuff and then come back, we both agreed that that would take a long time and I would be too tired. But it would have been a fun thing to do, I think.

I learned about some of the culture as well. I learned they live communally there. They do live in houses like those in which visitors can stay. But it seemed this family or group lived in the structure above the restaurant. Across from the restaurant was a long house. Inside they have ceremonies and there were lots of instruments that are played during the ceremonies. I also learned about how to tell if a woman in the group is single or married. During the working day, all the people wear traditional-ish clothing. This includes a sarong-like skirt. If a woman is single the ties for fastening the sarong are visible. If the woman is married, the ties are hidden, tucked inside. The culture there also seems to be matriarchal, but I couldn't figure out how to frame the questions so that she would know what I was talking about, so I don't know for sure. But the things I saw suggested that women are very important in much of what happens in how they celebrate and make various offerings or gestures to the gods.

Then Huong told me about the long house just opposite. She told me there was music inside and I should go and see it. I asked her when. She said it was all the time. Then she took me to show me. First we climbed up a little ladder to get inside. There was actually a little set of stairs on the side, but she took me up this ladder. She called it “Mama”. There were two breast-like things on it. She grabbed them to steady herself as she went up the ladder. When I didn't do the same, she got a bit annoyed and made me do it properly. Hmmm...

Inside she showed me drums and dugout canoes and some gongs. At the end there was an old man who played some interesting musical instruments made of bamboo. I didn't think to take any photos though. Oops. But there was a horn that looked like bagpipes. And a xylophone thing as well.

Next she took me up to see the elephants' graves again. She explained that they had died and they had buried them because they were like the community's family.

Then we went back out to the restaurant, where I said good-bye to Huong. I also got her to take a photo with me. But as I was preparing to leave, the man who had talked to me earlier, Tru, told me to wait. There was an elephant coming in twenty minutes. I wasn't sure if he had called an elephant to come just for me, but I didn't want to be rude and leave, so I stayed. Sure enough, an elephant trundled in from the road a short time later. I went out to look at it. And then Tru asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I inquired about the price which wasn't too bad. And then I thought about it. This place seemed to care for their elephants. I could hope that the money raised by giving rides to tourists is used to benefit the elephants and help with their care. It seemed likely, and so I decided that I would go for a ride. The elephant was saddled up, but seemed a bit ornery and so it took a little while. There was also a couple of bouts of rain in between and it all took a little over an hour before the elephant was ready to go. In the meantime, I talked with Huong some more. And then I asked her if she was going on the elephant with me. I had thought it was just a way to chat, and I was surprised when she said she would come. That was nice. Unfortunately, soon after we boarded the elephant, it began to rain. Heavily. I was not able to get a photo of us on the elephant as a result, but I did get a few of the elephant browsing through the vegetation to get something to eat.

And of some of the scenery.

And proof that Huong came with me.

After the elephant ride, I was going to go and catch the bus back to town. But Huong stopped me and told me that Tru would take me back to town in his car. I was a bit leery of that and how much it might cost, but it had started raining again, and I had no umbrella, so I was a bit stuck. I accepted. And he took me right to my hotel. And he didn't charge me a thing. That was a pleasant surprise.

So I had seen something of the fate of retired elephants and elephants rescued from bad situations. And I had met some nice people in an ethnic village in the central highlands of Vietnam. This little side adventure had been quite successful.

A Wild Goose Chase? My Search For an Elephant Sanctuary Begins

While chatting with Elizabeth and Michel, they told me about a trip she had taken on one of her trips. She had gone up to the Vietnamese highlands to a place called Dak Lak. There she had visited an elephant sanctuary. I don't recall if she rode an elephant or just went and had the experience of seeing them and visiting with the ethnic peoples in the area. In truth, I'm not really sure all that she did during her visit. I really only heard elephant sanctuary and thought that, gosh, it would be nice to go and see elephants being taken care of.

Once we returned to Ho Chi Minh City, we went to a travel office to see how to go to Dak Lak. We were told by the office we visited that they only did tours that involved Cambodia. Odd. Random. It was a tour office, and it was blowing us off because we weren't after the right one. We didn't pursue anything more that evening. I told Elizabeth that I would check things out the next day. We parted with plans to meet the next evening for her party with the circus people. I was out looking for some snack after that and I passed another travel office, and the lady inside beckoned me in. I don't know why exactly I went in, but I did. And I asked her how to get to Dak Lak. She asked me where in Dak Lak. It turned out that Dak Lak was a province and quite large. I explained about the elephant sanctuary and she understood. She told me I would be best to go to a city called Buon Ma Thuot and that the elephants were in a place called Buon Don.

I told her I would go and look things up and then get back to her. This I did and the next day, I booked a ticket to Buon Ma Thuot with her. Then she wrote some places down that I might want to visit. She wrote them in Vietnamese because, she told me, very few people speak any English in the area there. I could show them these place names and then the people I met would be able to know what I was looking for and help me. I wasn't sure it was going to be all that difficult, but I was grateful for the extra help she gave me.

I was to be at the office ready to go at 6:15. Yikes!! Oh well, it was going to be an interesting time, I was sure. I presented myself at the office at the appointed time. And I waited. And I waited. I was supposed to be taken to the bus station to catch a bus to Buon Ma Thuot at 7:00, and that was supposed to take about half an hour. By 6:45, I was thinking it wasn't going to happen, at least not the way it was supposed to happen. It ended up that I was told that the bus was delayed and would be leaving at 9 instead. Drat! I could have slept longer. Oh well. And I'm not sure that they just didn't know that I was supposed to be on such and such bus leaving from the bus station. But I will cut the whole thing some slack. Eventually I did get on a bus to Buon Ma Thuot and it all worked out, so whoever did or didn't know what really doesn't matter.

The trip was fairly uneventful. The one thing of note was our lunch stop. I walked in to the rest stop restaurant area. It was naturally catering to Vietnamese. (If there are ever lots of tourist types who visit Buon Ma Thuot, it's not during this season. I also somehow doubt that lots of people do visit the area, just because the road is sooooooooooo bad. Huge potholes, lake-like puddles, gravel, one paved lane and people weaving all over to avoid everything created a chaotic trip for most of the way.) I walked into the restaurant and I must have looked a bit bewildered. Or maybe it was just the way the security guard acted with all foreign visitors. He was almost elderly, but had a kindly face. He also spoke English. He walked right up to me and asked if I was going to eat. I said yes, and he took me by the elbow and led me over to the buffet-style counter and helped me pick out a couple of things and then took me to a table where I could eat. He told me how it would cost and then took my money to go and pay and bring back the change. I do suspect that perhaps I ended up paying a little bit more than I would have had I tried to manage on my own, but only by a dollar at the most. And he was very kind.

They also had a couple of elephant statues out front, so I figured I was on the right track.

When we still were about an hour from Buon Ma Thuot we stopped. A bunch of people got on the bus and suddenly we were overly full. One of the new people sat down by me, where others kind of did the oh-no-a-foreigner-I-can't-possibly-sit-there-I-might-be-expected-to-talk-to-him-so-I-will-just-not-sit-there-and-pretend-that-nothing-is-out-of-the-ordinary-about-the-situation thing. And he spoke some English. He immediately explained. There had been some sort of accident with their bus. I guess they had been waiting for rescue for some time. From what I could gather from the conversation (and it was a bit difficult as his English wasn't really, really good and my Vietnamese is, of course, dreadful), they were going to be four hours late by the time we arrived. Yikes!! But he was nice and it was good to spend the last hour or so talking with someone.

(By the way, don't try to hard to pronounce any of these names. I have been trying to say things and almost none of the vowels sound like the “should” according to what we would think from English pronunciation. And it's another tonal language like Chinese, so that makes it even more difficult.)

Once we reached Buon Ma Thuot, I walked across the street to the nearest hotel and asked about a room. It was a nice looking hotel and it was cheaper than anything I had found in Ho Chi Minh City. Ah! I love off the beaten track. By the time I had checked in, it had started raining. Actually raining wasn't really the correct description. It was bucketing down. The desk clerk loaned me an umbrella and told me where I could find something to eat, at the supermarket across the street and on the second floor. With the rain, I didn't feel like searching around for anything I had read about on Wikitravel for Buon Ma Thuot, so I just headed there. Through gestures of helplessness and an indication of wanting something to eat, I got myself a nice pork dish on rice. Then as I was going to sit down, they stopped me. There was more. I got some soup as well. And I had gotten a can of root beer. The price for this rather tremendous meal was a bit under 2 dollars. Ah! I love off the beaten track.

While I was eating there were three girls sitting at another table. They were probably 12 or 14 years old and they seemed to find me quite fascinating. Then they got up and crowded around me and started sitting with me to take photos. Despite feeling a bit like some kind of pet, it also left me feeling like a rock star. I do like going places where not many foreigner travellers/tourists go. The people in such places are just interested in you and like to be around you. They don't really want anything from you like money or stuff like that. They just want to experience you as a visitor, or perhaps some kind of curiosity or anomaly. It's refreshing to me.

After dinner, I went back to the hotel to see if I could find out anything about this place with the elephants. One thing I am not so good is really thinking through what I'm going to do when I decide to go somewhere. So while I was excited about the idea of an elephant sanctuary when Elizabeth told me about her adventure, I hadn't actually considered how I was going to find it. I had a name of a village, and a general sort of direction, but not much in the way of practical information. The guy at the front desk told me, when I asked, that there was a bus. The station where I could catch the bus was 2 kilometers away. Of course, I neglected to ask in what direction or what number the bus might have or anything like that. I was just like, great, there's a bus, that's all I need to know. I really do need to adjust my approach, I think. But then it's often this sort of unplanned adventure with little to no actual practical information that I find to be the most rewarding in the end. In any case, I had some vague idea of what I was looking for. I decided I could ask the desk guy more in the morning. And I went to bed.

Only, once again, I hadn't considered the fact that the guy might not be there in the morning to ask. And he wasn't. Hmmmmm... How was I going to find this bus? I had an idea. I figured that the people at the bus company might know the place and the bus in question. So I went to their office and asked. She had absolutely no idea what I meant. She tried to tell me I could hire a car and driver and go out there. She looked a bit shocked when I told her that would be too expensive and that I wanted to go out on the bus. She knew the bus I meant and kind of pointed vaguely in a direction that she thought might be helpful. Okaaay. I started walking. I was looking around for anything that might indicate a useful bus. I did find a bus shelter with a bus listed that had my destination on it. But I really didn't know how to recognize it if and when it came along. I didn't even know if I was going to be going in the right direction if I did catch it. I decided that I would need to have some help. I normally have an aversion to anything to do with the guys on motorbikes. I just have this idea that too many are out to sucker the traveller. Perhaps it's harsh to paint them all with the same brush, but in the end you can't tell who is going to sucker you and who isn't. So I normally avoid them all. But if I was to stand any chance of finding the bus I wanted, I was going to have to turn to someone. I decided on one of the motorbike guys since they would probably know what I was looking for, if I could communicate effectively enough what it was that I was looking for. We did end up agreeing that I was looking for Xe Buyt Ban Don, which I was hoping meant either bus stop for Ban Don or Ban Don bus route. We agreed on a price and I hopped on. He took me to the center of town, somewhere, and dropped me at a sign that suggested the bus for Ban Don would stop there. Yea!!! I paid him and then waited. It was only 10 in the morning and it looked as though I might have found what I was needing to make my day. I could get out there and do something, perhaps even something with elephants, and get back to town later. I had been told that Ban Don was about an hour away, so there should have been plenty of time if I could get on a bus somewhere in the next three quarters of an hour to an hour.

And yea, the bus came about 20 minutes later. Full to the rafters. I had to squeeze on. And then hold on. The road was a bit rough and very windy. There were a couple of people on the bus who spoke a bit of English. They talked to me and asked where I was heading. As they were talking to me, others heard my destination. And now the helpless foreigner, who was a curiosity and was talking nicely to the locals had a busload of people on his side to make sure he got off at the right spot. And when the bus stopped for gas, the two people who spoke English wanted to take photos with the nice foreigner. I did get one email address to send a photo to. The other is just for my records I guess.

At the correct time, a bunch of people pointed at me and jabbered something that I took to mean that it was time for me to get off the bus. I did. They smiled. I had done the right thing. So there I was in the little hamlet of Ban Don. And I had not much information about what there was about the place that was worth going to see. Except that there were elephants around somewhere in some kind of elephant sanctuary.

Aha!! A map!!

And behind me was a rather sad sight. Chained to some trees were three elephants with riding seats on their backs. I guess they were just sitting around waiting for tourists to come along for a ride. And nothing I saw on the map suggested that there was a sanctuary anywhere nearby. I was a bit saddened. Now, to be fair, the elephants didn't look to be in ill-health or to be ill-treated in any way. They looked quite healthy, in fact. But instead of having a large to roam around, or even being free in a big forest, they had the amount of circular space traced by the chains around their legs. And again, I have no idea of their housing when there is no expectation of visits by tourists with money wanting to go for a ride. Which, to be honest, was what I was. I had come with the idea that maybe I would want to go for a ride. When I saw the elephants that way, though, my enthusiasm was dampened. I decided against the ride. Of course that left me with the question of what I was going to do with myself, having taking all the time and effort to get out to Ban Don.

On the map there seemed to be an area of interest just nearby. So I went poking around and found an entrance ticket booth for... Um... Something. I wasn't sure what, but it was only 50 cents, and I had come all that way. So I paid and headed in. I found myself at a swaying rope and bamboo bridge. That looked like fun. The guy at the entrance who processed my ticket (ten feet away from the ticket booth; I wonder sometimes if things are done like that to give more people an actual job; I mean why couldn't the people in the ticket booth process the ticket?), then gestured me onto the bridge and wanted my camera. He took a bunch of photos of me on the bridge in various spots. It was kind of strange. I felt a bit like I was doing some kind of photo shoot for some fashion magazine. Except, of course, I ain't no model, I'm not glamorous, and it was far away from anything that could remotely be called fashionable. And then I expected that he would hold out his hand for some kind of photographer's fee. I suppose I will never fully relax because of all the people who do hold out their hands after doing something “nice.” It does suck though that all the rest get painted with the same brush. The guy didn't want anything. He just seemed to want me to have some mementos.

There were a bunch of those bridges that connected trees and an island in the middle of a fairly raging sort of river. On the island were some tourist shopping kiosks and a restaurant, and no people manning any of them. It really must have been out of season. And yet, clearly they do have enough visitors at some point in time. But I was pretty much alone, although a couple of other people, who I took to be Vietnamese, came through a while later, taking photos of themselves on the bridges and in the trees and such.

And still I had seen nothing of an elephant sanctuary. I was feeling a bit disappointed by that, but then the community was one of the ethnic peoples of Vietnam. I figured that even if I wasn't going to see how elephants are rehabilitated from either abusive environments or from some kind domestication, I could at least wander around the community and see what was what.

I wandered through town for a little while. It wasn't a very big village and I was soon on the other end of it. But while I had been sitting on the island enjoying the view out over the river and forests on the other side, clouds had begun to gather. Big, dark, menacing clouds. At the end of the village, the clouds decided to do what clouds do. It began to rain. I headed back towards the beginning of the village. I had seen a restaurant there and I figured I could get some lunch. But the rain got heavy quickly and I had to duck under an awning to wait it out. Someone inside the house where I was seeking refuge came out and asked if she could help me. I got a coke and she gave me a seat, then she went back inside.

She was watching a television show. When I glanced at it, I was surprised to find that, out here in a little village in the Vietnamese countryside peopled by an ethnic people of the country, they were watching a Korean drama. There is no escaping Korea, I guess. I don't ever see anyone watching an episode of Due South. Oh well.

I watched the rain for a bit. When it lessened, I went to the restaurant and got some lunch. Then I headed back to Buon Ma Thuot, having been unsuccessful in my search for an elephant sanctuary.

Despite the disappointment of not discovering the fate of rescued or retired elephants, other than the rather depressing thought that they were at the beck and call of tourists looking for a thrill, I still found Buon Ma Thuot rather charming and I decided to stay another day. In the information online, there was something about an actual visit to an ethnic village that was just on the north edge of town. I decided that I could do that.

But after I got off the bus, much closer to where I was staying than I the spot where I had caught the bus, I passed a hotel that advertised eco-tours to Yok Don National Park, home of elephants and other animals. Hmmm... I also remembered passing a big sign pointing at Ban Don Tourist Area. Perhaps I could find something after all. So I stopped in and talked to a woman in the office. She spoke some English and told me if the weather was good, it would be good to go. I decided that if the weather was good, I would go to this other spot the next day and give things one more chance.

Then it was time to find some dinner. Across the street from the hotel was a bunch of little restaurants. Most seemed to serve the Vietnamese noodle soup, and one jumped up at my approach. So I went to that place and they gave some noodle soup and a soft drink for the stunning price about a dollar fifty.

Satisfied, I went in for the night and looked a couple of things up on the internet. I discovered that the bus I took out to Ban Don actually stopped at the supermarket right across the street. And it was one of the first stops, so I would have gotten a seat. Research, such a help. I should try it more often.