I still feel really tired after last week, and the 36-degree heat and 60% humidity do little to perk you up. The only tonic that can work is being in the company of elephants who lumber around mirroring your slow pace and heavy steps.

After a three-and-a-half-hour horrendous drive over pot-holed roads (Blightey, you ain’t seen nothing yet) and a slow boat across the lake, we eight visitors arrive at the Elephant Conservation Centre in Sainyabuli. As you round a headland, wooden huts come into view, stilted on the hillside. These will be our beds for the night, no doubt, to be shared by a plethora of creepy crawlies that can easily get into the hut via the open floorboards and the 20cm gap between the walls and roof. That said, it is a room with a beautiful view.

We are not here though for the views, but to see some of the 27 elephants in the 650 hectare Conservation Park. All these projects are different and when I have a full picture of their activities I will write a little more, but for now this is about the visitor experience. We will pay to have a lovely environment and be in the company of the elephants, so that our proceeds will cover 90% of the cost of this worthy conservation project. Nice.

After we have dropped off our bags in our little huts, we are straight off for a 30-minute hike in the forest with our guide Mr Xaiphone, returning to the lakeside, where on a wooden platform, our lunch of soup and spring rolls is set up for us. Just as we were wrapping up lunch we hear cow bells way off in the distance, and 4 elephants and their mahouts appear out of the forest on the other side of the watery inlet. They are bought here by the mahouts, but tempted by the treats of bamboo and bathing.

We then see some educational videos about elephants, the project and conservation (excellent) before a tour of the facility. The elephants hospital, the only one in Laos, is the size of an aircraft hanger to accommodate the rather large size of its patients.

Now, late in to the afternoon, some of the herd are brought to the camp area. Again tempted by food, this time banana leaves and water. We hear individual names, their ages and any breeding history. All are captive elephants, part of the biggest herd in Laos. Numbers quoted are of 400 captive and 400 wild elephants now in Laos. This centre has so far ‘re-wilded’ four elephants in to the nearby National Park and six more are in the lengthy process of adaptation. Two babies have been born in the herd, and another one is pregnant ( pic below). Small, but significant steps they say.

Finally, the elephants walk away from the water and we follow them back in to the forest to where they will spend the night. It beats walking the dogs!