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Elephant Hills receives Sustainable Tourism Award from Virgin Holidays
 Awarded for our position and approach to animal welfare, including animal husbandry and the care of our Elephants, Elephant Hills has been awarded the - Silver "Partner in Sustainability Award"!
Presented by Virgin Holidays Contract Manager Mathew Bramich at wth World Travel Market the award represents a "clear and comprehensive responsible tourism policy. Elephant Hills has continued to demonstrate the positive role of tourism in promoting conservation and providing sustainable livelihood opportunities."
We are proud to have been nominated and presented with this award and are looking forward to developing our responsible luxury nature tours, Elephant Experiences and expeditions! |
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 September is the wettest month in Khao Sok and here at Elephant Hills it means a few less guests. This quieter period is perfect for maintenance work but also for refreshing some of the most important skills such as health and safety and fire training.
This time the annual fire training was organized by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation from Surat Thani. It was the fourth time practicing these important skills for Elephant Hills Marketing Coordinator Ms. Wanna Petchakul from our Phuket head office. Khun Wanna thought that fire training is very important part of staff training and it teaches you important skills, such as how to help guests and colleagues in case of fire, but it was also fun to spend a day with colleagues doing something outside normal work.
This year’s fire training was a bit more exciting than usual as the staff also practiced how to evacuate from upper floors of a burning building with a rope! The six hour training also concentrated on use of different types of fire extinguishers, CPR and helping injured people out from a burning building. Our next important annual training later this month will be First Aid training organized by the staff from Phuket’s Thalang Hospital. |
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Baan Bangpru School in Khao Sok receives brand new sports equipment and musical instruments! |
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We recently had the great pleasure of facilitating a generous donation to one of the rural schools in Khao Sok by Mr. Kim Carlsen and his family. Mr. Carlsen is a repeat guest of Elephant Hills and has also been a huge supporter of our Children's Project and the schools of Khao. This time a Facebook group was created, in order to spread the awareness of the project, and to collect money to purchase sports equipment and musical instruments.
In addition to the donation, the Carlsen family had the brilliant idea of combining both music and physical exercise in a form of a song with dance choreography. The song – named Joy – was composed solely for Baan Bangpru School by a Danish musician Hans-Jørn Andersen, and the choreography for the dance was designed by a physical education college in Denmark. Elephant Hills as a local coordinator of the donation taught the choreography for the students adding some traditional Thai elements to the dance. Mr. Carlsen and his family attended the event in Khao Sok, and the Joy dance was presented as a greeting and a thank you during the donation ceremony.
Both students and teachers of Baan Bangpru School were very excited with the brand new sports equipment as well as the marching band equipment and traditional Thai instruments. All the children were eager to try out the instruments and we are confident that this new equipment will greatly help to improve the quality of musical and physical education at the school.
We would like to thank Mr. Kim Carlsen, his family, local businesses in Denmark, and everyone who joined the Facebook group for your great generosity towards the students of Baan Bangpru School! |
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Last month saw the filming of a brand new documentary in Khao Sok National Park. Elephant Hills and the Rainforest Camp were both hosts to the BBC whilst they filmed a ground breaking documentary on the Cheow Larn Lake
Presented by Lain Stewart and out soon we are sure it will be amazing showcase
of the Cheow Larn Lake and Khao Sok National Park! |
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09Aug2011 / 17:30 Gaur (Wild Asian Ox ) and other wildlife spotted at Elephant Hills Rainforest Camp!
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This extremely rare Gaur was spotted just a short canoe ride away from our Rainforest Camp on the Cheow Larn Lake. Indicated as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List this species is believed to have only between 13 – 30,000 individuals (and this is a crude guess ) left across Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Lao PDR, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Viet Nam. This number is even less than the estimated population of Asian Elephants in South East Asia, which is between 30-50,000 individuals, and the Asian Elephant is classified as “Endangered”.
There are 2 subspecies in Thailand and this individual is of the bos gaurus hubbacki subspecies which is the rarer of the two. There are no estimates for how many remain in Khao Sok but this sighting is evidence that they are still here. Let’s hope they continue to roam the forests of Khao Sok and surrounding areas for generations to come and that we are lucky enough to see more soon!
Below are a few of the wildlife pictures we have been lucky enough to take at the Rainforest Camp over the past few months. Perhaps on your next trip to Elephant Hills and the Rainforest Camp you too will be able to catch a glimpse of these amazing creatures.
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 First Aid Training from the Thai Red Cross 22nd – 23rd May 2010
Every year Elephant Hills invites the Red Cross for 2 days to give practical lifesaving training to our staff. Everyone from across the breadth of the company from Guides, Drives, Office Staff and of course our Mahouts participate in a day filled with education and fun. “It’s very important for us that our staff has the knowledge of what to do when something happens; it’s safety for the staff but mostly for all our guests. We learn a lot during these days but we also have a lot of fun. We are looking forward to next year’s update” says Elephant Hills’s Service Manager. Each and every one of the staff that participate receive a certificate from the Red Cross foundation and also free personal first aid kit to take with them on their tours.
  
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 Japanese TV crew visits Elephant Hills
On April 5th Elephant Hills had the pleasure of welcoming to our Luxury Tented Camp, Miss Nori Horikoshi from Japan, star of many famous travel and Chat shows in Japan.
Filming her new production “Tabi Salad” (Travel Salad), with and on our Elephants, in the Jungle and on site at our Tented Camp was a great success. Evening activities such as local school dance performaces, cooking shows and informational presentations on the rainforest and Elephants were all part film and much fun was had by all; Including Miss Nori taking part with the children’s dance performance!
The show will air in Japan starting from the 1st of August 2009 every Saturday with the final episode exploring Elephant Hills and Khao Sok on the 29th August 2009. For those of you in Japan, don’t forget to tune in soon! |
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 Last month facilitated by Elephant Hills, Ennovator Marketing and Burchardt A/S in Denmark donated new play equipment to one of the schools in Khao Sok along with a repeat guest of Elephant Hills Mr Kim Carlsson. Before this there was no outside of class stimulation for the children and as you can see the play equipment was a big hit! We would like to say a big thank you to both Ennovator Marketing and Burchardt A/S on behalf of the school. Over the next 3 months we will be donating more equipment to 2 other schools in Khao Sok. Keep an eye out for updated pictures of our donations here!
We are also in the process of creating a project to collect and donate clothes to orphanages in the north of Thailand. Those guests who would like to donate can bring old children’s clothes or even toys and we shall ensure that they are passed on to the appropriate orphanage.
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