The last work day, Thursday 28th

The week continued to be very hot and today the mercury soared above 40c. The evenings are warmer too, and did not often have the cooler winds blowing through the valley, with refreshing strong gusts at times. This morning I chose to help out one of the other groups who were short on team members as this was their corn cutting day. Our group had an ele-walk and a mud-pit clean on the schedule, but I don’t feel that I missed out having done both in the last seven days. Corn cutting can be a long and hard day as I found on Tuesday of this week so I’m sure an extra machete being wielded made a difference! As usual, Say was up to his brain-teaser tricks again.

We cleared the corn field in good time and it was an easy load on the truck as it was able to park adjacent to  the stacked bundles and we didn’t have to carry them over two fields as before. We had finished it all by 11:30am and had our lunch in the field. Say, our coordinator, suggested taking a short side excursion to the Srilanna National Park to see the dam and reservoir, it was just 1.5 km further down the road. The reservoir looked quite low, but that would change within the next month or two when the rains begin. We were back at the park around 1:30pm and had the afternoon free, with the option of tubing. I decided to take advantage of the quiet afternoon and rest and catch up a bit on my blog writing, and besides in the heat I didn’t want to move much at all.

As the sun set behind me, I stood on the western bank of the Mae Tang river, to watch the elephants at play.  Navann, cute as always, put on quite a show with his family, which led perfectly into Leks talk with the volunteers.

In some ways it is hard to believe this is my last night at Elephant Nature Park, but the past three weeks have been a life altering experience - thank you Lek and Darrick. It feels like I have been away from home for three months and I have a long journey ahead of me, but it will feel good to get there.