Visitez Luang Prabang, et le reste du Laos

The elephant conservation center

Benolaos — 2014-12-02T05:06:00Z

The Elephant Conservation Center hosts Laos' first hospital dedicated to elephants that are victims of logging accidents or affected by diseases.

Located in Sayabouly (3 hours by road from Luang Prabang) the center is staffed with an international team of elephant vets and offers free veterinary care services, an emergency unit, a breeding center, a mahout vocational center and the most extensive elephant information center in country.

The Elephant Conservation Center is not just another elephant camp. It provides a global approach to the resolution of various problems striking the last elephants of Laos. Through a dedicated team of international conservationists and vets, programmes are implemented on site and beyond. ElefantAsia, an internationally recognised organisation, runs Laos' elephant conservation programme from the facility. A true private-public partnership, the Elephant Conservation Center cooperates with multiple conservation organisations around the world.

You can sponsor an elephant. Here are the animals who need your help : http://www.elephantconservationcenter.com/project/sponsor-an-elephant/

The Center proposes several way of visit :

1day visit, beginning at 8:30 in Sayaboury

Guided visit of the Center with veterinarians
Interacting with elephants
Lunch
Discover the Nursery
Elephant Bath

3 Days / 2 Nights Package

Short boat trip on the Nam Tien lake
Guided visit of the Center with veterinarians
Interacting with elephants
Walks with elephants and explore the forest
Discover the Nursery
Follow the elephants to their night resting place.
Elephant Baths
Sunset cruise on the lake

6 Days / 5 Nights Eco Experience

This package is your gateway to the Elephant World! During the week, you will share the life of a mahout and learn the basics of this centuries-old craft. Activities include support work at the Center and hospital; feeding the elephants; assisting the mahouts in all phases of their working day. An in-depth encounter with the Giants of Laos. It is possible to extend your stay on completion of your first week. You will then become a long-term volunteer (two weeks up to a month).
A special experience that gives you the real contact with the pachyderms, full of strength, full of love and fidelity.

See more details on the official website, see below.

View online : Website

Mahout experience

Benolaos — 2012-06-25T05:01:12Z

Mahout means the elephant driver, keeper, or handler. He usually starts his career very young, at about ten years old. The mahout is usually given an elephant to look after and care for the rest of the elephant's life. They are a kind of couple, helping each other in the daily life, living, sleeping, and eating together...

What do you learn from this introductory course?

You will learn how to ride an elephant on its neck like a mahout, how to take care of an elephant, how to handle it, how to give it verbal and physical commands.
You will also have the opportunity to live close to them, having bath in the fresh rivers with the big pachyderms.

You can experience a 1 day, a 2 days, 3 days, or even more days this training with professionals in a very preserved environment.

Small dictionary of the Lao Elephant (incomplete :-(

advance: pay
right: doun what
left: doun say
back: touay lan
raises: niok
lifts the foot: niok tin
grows: houau niou
raises the paw: his (so that the mahout uses it as a ladder to climb on his neck)
pushes the trunk of the foot: can
less quickly: sassa
pulls: pay
get down on your knees: moup
take: tiap haou
when two trunks are on top of each other: tom long gniat
bring down the trunk from above and take it: you can haou souane
put your string: doun so

Elephant approach in Luang Prabang

Benolaos — 2012-06-25T04:48:34Z

Since 2010, the government began to protect the elephants by adding laws and financial resources firstly to organize the end of their use in logging. Since then, hundreds of elephants and their mahout lost their traditional dangerous and tiring work.

The area of Luang Prabang is well known for centuries to host elephants. With the rise of tourism, probably one of the best ways to help the transition being smooth for a country based on the exploitation of the elephants is to develop elephant camps, park, and protected area in term to let this specie to not decline more (only 800 elephants left in all Lao territory, including 300 wild elephants where the biggest horde is living close to Sayabouri).

At this time, you will have opportunity to choose between many approach options to meet the elephant. Just watching, riding, bathing, or training the mahout work.

We highly recommend to follow these advise: don't ride an elephant with a heavy wooden chair, don't ride 2 persons on the same animal, if you can, survey first about the elephant conditions in the camp. If you can afford, we highly recommend to take 2 days or more in Sayabouri, in the Elephant Conservation Center.

Elephant Festival

Benolaos — 2012-02-21T08:03:00Z

Iinitiated in 2006 by an NGO working for years with the elephants, this annual meeting became one of the big festivals of Laos, followed by thousands of Laotians who move to attend a number of exercises, parades, and elections of the most emblematic animal of Laos. Fifty elephants are walking around for 3 days in the streets of the small provincial town. A large market takes place for the occasion with all kind of local (or Thai) products.

Below, taken from the Website of Elephant Asia:

As a living icon with important symbolic connotations and historical associations in Laos, the elephant is an animal dear to the hearts of the Lao people. Unfortunately, it is no exaggeration to say that the elephant, one of the defining components of Asian heritage, is today under threat.

Due to loss of its forest habitat, the Asian elephant is endangered in the wild. Because economic and technological change has limited the number of elephants needed in traditional occupations, the continued well-being of the region's large number of domesticated elephants is also of concern, as is the future of mahouts and their families.

In response to these concerns, the Elephant Festival has been organised to raise awareness of the need for action to protect the Asian elephant as part of the vital cultural and natural heritage of Laos and the countries of the region. Sayaboury Province welcomes you back to pay tribute to its elephants and enjoy great cultural activities and entertainment.

Sayaboury Province has always been famous for elephants. The expert training and handling capabilities of local mahouts have made Sayaboury the focal point of Lao elephant-lore. In sayaboury, elephants are sacred.

They have been man's best friend since time immemorial. Traditionally used for work in the forest, these magnificent animals are now looking forward to meeting you at this 6th elephant festival, giving you the chance to discover the riches and marvels

of the cultural and natural world surrounding them. Who could pretend to have visited Laos, the “Land of a Million Elephants”, without meeting one of these superb animals? So, come and meet the elephants and their masters at the Elephant Festival...where past and present meet...

Since 2012, the festival will be hosted in Sayabouri, and will not be managed by Elephant Asia as it was before.

in 2023: festival from 13 to 20 February
in 2021 and 2022, no festival
in 2020: festival from 21 to 28 February
in 2019: festival from 24 to 27 February
in 2018: festival from 15 to 18 February
in 2017: festival from 16 to 19 February
in 2016: festival from 19 to 21 February
in 2015: festival from 13 to 15 February
in 2014: festival from 17 to 19 February
in 2013: festival from 17 to 19 February

See also the fantastic article about this festival : https://sonasia-holiday.com/sonabee/laos-elephant-festival