WELL! We arrived up to our interview at the Safari Park on Thursday at 10.30am precise!, clear-headed and raring to go and waited to meet Nuch, the Marketing and Sales Manager. We were pencilled in, in the diary at the main reception – things were looking good. Nuch arrived and was absolutely delightful. She was super excited that we had emailed her and offered to volunteer at the park and said we were the first foreigners, in the history of the park, that had EVER done that! Firstly she wanted to know a bit about us, how long we were staying in Koh Samui, where we lived, what we wanted to do at the Park. We gave her all the relevant info and said that we were willing to do whatever they needed us to do (That was to prove foolhardy later on!!!) and really felt that we were privileged even having the opportunity! She said that she would love us to come and work with them (after she had ascertained that we weren’t Greenpeace moles!) and wanted to show us around the park and explain what they were all about - we started off at the Tiger enclosure! Bacchius is their 1-year old Bengal Tiger and we were allowed to take some photos of him with us – my God what an impressive creature (pics will follow on FB!). We were allowed to sit by him and stroke him, right out in the open – no cages or anything. What an absolutely amazing experience. We were then introduced to one of two 2-month old cubs, Bernie (Bushee being the other) and under unrestricted supervision were allowed to feed, by bottle, milk to him! He sat on our knees and put his huge paws (as big as a bloke’s hands) on ours and sucked and sucked away – slightly hairy moment as I heard Dan call out “the milk’s running out, THE MILK’S RUNNING OUT!!!!” but he was fine, just rolled over and wanted his tummy tickled, inbetween serious paw swipes and a few growls that we were assured were playful! The cub was just fine too – curled up and went to sleep in the corner!
Next we were ushered down to meet Omm, a new mum and her baby daughter, the first baby elephant born in Koh Samui, named Kwan Samui. Kwan was born on 2nd October so is not yet a month old yet weighs about 1 tonne already! She is still finding her feet and wobbles about a quite a lot – she almost looks like she’s had a few too many when she tries to run and her legs get the better of her (we’ve all been there folks!), her feet sometime get the better of her and she ends up, upended on her backside or head. She runs about underneath her mum and it’s quite clear that she doesn’t quite know what her trunk is for yet as she keeps stepping on it!! There are about 25 grown elephants at the Park varying in ages from the baby to about 35 others including a very naughty 4 year old that WILL not do as it’s told. Every elephant has their own Mahout (their keeper) who sleeps at the park and is with the elephant 24/7. They feed them, train them, wash them, and basically are their carers. Its very obvious how much they do care for their charges as they whisper in their ears, stroke them, pet them and generally and genuinely seem to want them to prosper in the environment of the Park.
Crocodiles were next on the list – we met several but there were numerous others than really, REALLY looked like they wanted to get to know us better – preferably over dinner! We really did keep a safe disance from these slippery suckers. Nuch told us that she wanted us to help the keepers with the shows in the coming weeks …. Don’t hold your breath on that one. If they want English commentary no problem, if they want heads to stick in their jaws – we are the wrong volunteers!!!!
Cobras and Pythons came next and Christ they looked mean. We watched the snake show and decided that we wanted to be nowhere near anything that could raise it’s body up to half it’s height and puff it’s neck out to 4 times it’s body width. At the end of the show, we did however end up with two 15lb pythons wrapped around our bodies, necks and legs and actually loved it – they even kissed our cheeks!!!
We ended our interview with Nuch absolutely delighted by the way we reacted to everything and said she would like us to come and volunteer straight away (of course she does – we come free!!!). She wants us to learn about animal welfare for all the animals they have, wants us to learn how to help train the animals for the shows and also to teach English to the Thai staff as well as be interpreters for the foreign tourists. English is the common language so we are well placed to let the tourists know all about the Park and its inhabitants, their ethos and future plans. She also wants us to be able to drive the ATVs and jeeps and take groups on the safaris and up to the waterfalls that are on the park! The only worry she has was what they would feed us a lunch times – we said as long as WE weren’t on the menu we’d quite happily eat whatever they were going to give us (our second foolhardy mistake!!!). Armed with our red Namuaung Safari Park polo shirts we headed home, happy and excited about starting on Friday at 8.30am!!
Take care M&D x
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