Elephant Blast

By "blast" I mean "crack," "pop," "boom," in terms of the type of sound this particular elephant made. At about 1 o'clock this morning I was sleeping semi-soundly when something that sounded like an explosion or big gun fire shook me violently awake, heart racing, and developing a sweat in the ~58 degree F night. As I lay there in bed surrounded by pitch black darkness, eyes wide open, I actually felt frightened - a sensation I'm not well-acquainted with as I'm used to a pretty soft lifestyle. The thing that caused this fear was that the sound was so foreign and unidentifiable to my ears. The sound reminded me of youtube videos I've watched about modern/high tech high cal guns, but this blast I heard from the dark jungle not 50 meters away couldn't be something like that. I knew there was a single chained elephant down there, and though I'd heard just about every chirp, squirt, growl, and trumpet from these beasts, this sound was completely new. For better or for worse, The sound jumped from the woods once again about 30 minutes later, shaking me again, but pushing my mind at least to believe 51% that the elephant had somehow produced the sound. After the first one, I lay alert, submerged in total darkness, ears peeled, almost twitching like those desert fox things. My imagination envisioned jungle guerillas kicking my hut's feeble door in and spraying my body full of lead. I even thought about escape route through the single window. I envisioned me rolling to the far side of the bed over the edge and using super firm, no, hard, mattress as a shield. I thought about trying to spook any potential invaders myself. After the second and third blasts, however, I convinced myself I was being silly and the elephant's ever-multi-purpose trunk had produced what can best be described as a snare drum beat but with the volume of an m80 firecracker, assumably because the animal was kept in a small valley that bolstered the sound. Exactly how it produced this particularly effective warning sound wasn't made clear to me until this morning and a few emails to an elephant researcher I found via Google. According to this guy who actually did a PhD dissertation on research conducted not a mile away from my homestay at another camp, elephants will rap their trunks against the ground while blasting air out at the same time. The other factor that led me to believe it was the elephant was that it didn't freak out after the big sound, but actually sort of giggled/chirped just barely audibly. I also imagined a gunfire would send birds and the elephant alike nutso.  Additionally, elephants only sleep about 5-6 hours a day - a couple hours at night (often lying down), and shorter naps throughout the day (sometimes standing up). They can also eat up to 175lbs of food a day. Recent studies have also indicated that when stampeding* they are actually running with their front legs and walk with the hind ones. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8508796.stm They can go up to 11mph, and it's hard to stay on when they run because you're sitting hear their shoulders.

*We were going out for a short ride one evening at maybe five with all 7 elephants including the baby. I was on one of the elephants, a big ol' girl, with a (well-experienced) mahout riding behind me. We were at the back of the pack, and the baby elephant was being a retard and somehow found itself in a position in front of my elephant but with a blind spot of the road. It was sort of weaving and trying to navigate amongst the larger elephants, but eventually I watched an "Oh Shit. Time to hang on" situation happen right in front of me when a truck came up the road behind us right as the baby turned towards the road and got freaked out crying out and causing the whole lot to go for a stampede. I was lucky enough to have had a rein around my beast's neck, so just held on for dear life as did most people ahead of me. One unfortunate girl fell off, scraped up her foot, but was luckily fine other wise. My mahout got control of our elephant after about a hundred meter dash and I jumped the hell off to see if the girl was okay. My flip flops had come off, but I seemed to be the only one concerned. The villagers living on this street of course were making a ruckus pissed off to see a stampede past their front "lawns" and also concerned for the shocked, then frightened and tearful young lady. After taking her to the hospital for bandaging we shared a round of road beers (Chang) and grilled eggs finally agreeing it was neat experience. I only had some minor scratches from the elephant's tough skin. I think she mentioned being frightened in da early morn next day by a growl - I chuckled inside. If there's one thing living at the TEH it's that elephants are beasts. Trainable. Lovable. But still a beast.