Elephant Sanctuary, Kuala Gandah, Pahang, MALAYSIA
January 19, 2008

The elephant conservation centre in Kuala Gandah is a favourite weekend outing for mostly western expatriates and tourists from Kuala Lumpur. When we arrived at the centre around noon, the place was full with Mat Sallehs, a big group of tourists from Australia and England.

To get there, take East Coast highway heading toward Kuantan. After Lanchang toll exit, turn right onto a rural road that would take you all the way to the centre.

The entrance to the centre

After exiting from the toll and turning right, I stopped at a vanilla farm, Rentak Timur Sdn Bhd. I was curious and wanted to see for myself how vanilla trees were grown commercially. Furthermore, I wanted to make doubly sure that I was heading in the right direction. I met the farm Business Development Manager, Bobby Ronald who offered me to be their contract farmer instead. Well, may be some other times.

Taking a break at the centre's one & only food stall

We reached the place at around 12.30PM. The centre is the base for the Elephant Translocation Team, which began the elephant translocation programme in 1974. The team relocates problem elephants than transgress into human settlement and oil palm estates due to depleting habitat. The entrance to the centre is free but donation is highly sought for the cash strapped team. From the look of the set up and running of the programme and the centre, this is one dedicated elephant team.

Family Ride

The activities at the centre started at 1PM with the screening of video presentation highlighting the team’s work in relocating the rogue elephants. Following the Visitors’ Timetable, we moved to the feeding of the elephants at 2PM, followed by elephant rides. The ride was short but the queue was long. I went along with Nina and Anas.

Feeding the Elephant

The best activity at the centre was taking the elephant ride inside the river and on cue from the trainer, the elephant would drop sideways plunging into the river with the riders. Everybody seemed to enjoy this very much. We were afraid of getting wet and did not go for it. It was one thing that I later regretted.

1st Get on top of the elephant

The elephant would throw the riders down

Taking the plunge

The already wet crowd inside the river could then participate in cleaning the elephants. This time they brought out 2 baby elephants which were instant hits among the kids. Even Anas could not resist. He took into the water.

Anas bathing a baby

By 3.30PM, the river activities stopped. It also started to drizzle. Anas was still in the river with a group of Sikh families. The visitors could still participate in feeding the elephants their dinner of water melons, bananas and cucumbers. They must be real hungry after all these activities.

Lucky couple who got the honour of the last ride out of the river

On the way back we stopped at an Orang Asli (aborigines) village to take some pictures. The village is right next to the Elephant Sanctuary.

Orang Asli Village

By 4.30PM we made our way back to civilization. We decided to detour a bit to Temerloh for its famous river fish, patin. We had our meals at one of the stalls in Temerloh. It was late for lunch and too early for dinner. We had some leftover patin and catfish.

As I was driving back to KL, I wonder how come Malaysians seemed to have missed something in their backyard enjoyed by foreigners. Perhaps we were too busy going to shopping complexes to really get out and taste nature which is aplenty. What a pity!