The Thailand smoking ban, which was put into effect in February 2019, prohibits people from lighting up in several public places including beaches, airports and hotels. Here’s everything you need to know.

Attention smokers: Be mindful of where you take a smoke break in Thailand. The country has had enough of cigarette butts being left behind by thoughtless smokers, so a ban has been implemented. Offenders will be charged a fine up to 5,000 bhat–roughly $160.00 USD.

The new Thailand smoking ban, which includes vaping and e-cigarettes, already prevents people from smoking on beaches. But now there’s many more additional no smoking zones. The new regulations from the Ministry of Public Health state smoking is illegal at the following locations:

• airports
• amusement parks and water parks
• banks/cash machines/ATMs
• cinemas and other entertainment venues
• condos, apartments & rental buildings
• fitness parks and gyms
• government offices
• hospitals and clinics
• hotels
• grocery stores
• libraries
• laundries
• massage and spa venues
• public parking areas
• pubs
• religious buildings
• restaurants
• schools and nurseries
• shopping malls
• swimming pools
• toilets (public toilets)
• various transportation areas including bus stops, piers and taxi/mini-van stands

One thing for smokers to note is that the Thailand smoking ban is now not just prohibiting smoking inside some buildings, but also outside if it’s within 5 meters of a public entrance or exit. While the new Thailand smoking ban is much stricter, in some cases there will be smoking rooms and areas allowed at transportation hubs and other venues. No smoking signs will be prominently featured.

The Thailand smoking ban was first created after the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) revealed it cleans up tens of thousands of cigarette butts left on Thailand beaches.

Filmmaker Ashley Bell Documents the Plight and Hope for Asian Elephants in “Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story”

By Angela Dawson

Actress Ashley Bell is best known for portraying a young woman possessed by the devil in the horror franchise “The Last Exorcism.” And now the native Angeleno confronts another type of evil, an atrocity against nature committed by man, in a documentary she produced, co-wrote and directed called “Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story.”

In her directorial debut, Bell sheds light on the plight of the Asian elephant, a species threatened with extinction. Numbering just 45,000, the Asian elephant population has declined precipitously in recent years for a variety of reasons, mostly caused by humans. Having once roamed the Asian and Southeast Asian jungles freely, these elephants—smaller in size and in numbers than their African counterparts—are in trouble because their natural habitats are being destroyed by logging and deforestation. Further, these intelligent creatures are often captured and sold to circuses and trekking companies for tourists or used as service animals in the logging industry.

In her revealing documentary, Bell shows surveillance footage of the animals being abused and confined for days in what is called a “crush box” where they are chained and beaten to destroy their spirit so they can be trained to perform for humans. But there’s a bright side to the story. There are some organizations trying to save the species by rescuing Asian elephants from unspeakable conditions and bringing them to sanctuaries. One of these rescuers is Sangduen “Lek” Chailert, a Cambodian elephant conservationist, who has saved more than 200 elephants over the past 20 years. Time magazine has dubbed her a Hero of Asia. She and her team at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary rescue abused and sick Asian elephants, rehabilitate them and allows them to live in the wild on a Cambodian preserve.

Bell had visited Cambodia once before to document the rescue of two service elephants—a male and female—but that didn’t work out. A few years later, the 31-year-old actress-filmmaker and her film crew joined Lek in an attempt to rescue a 70-year-old blind elephant named Noi Na, who like so many elephants in captivity, had been mistreated throughout most her life. The trekking company that owned her was finally willing to release the sick old elephant to Chailert. But first they had to go get her 500 miles away in neighboring Thailand.

The documentary explores that daring rescue operation, which was both complicated and dangerous as the elderly pachyderm is naturally frightened of boarding a truck. But with Chailert’s experienced hand and helpers, Noi Na eventually is coaxed onto the vehicle for the 23-hour journey to freedom at the sanctuary. Bell and her crew are there to chronicle every minute of the nail-biting rescue, which presents all sorts of hazards, including potential red tape as the truck crosses the international border and a frightened and blind and elephant that could faint at any moment from heatstroke in the jungle heat.

Bell is seen throughout as she interviews Lek and her rescue team and goes on the long and difficult journey to save the endangered animal, pouring water on Noi Na to keep her cool and petting her occasionally. Then there is the slow and careful process of introducing her to her new herd.

The actress spoke by phone about her debut documentary and how she hopes the film will inspire others to want to help save the Asian elephant from extinction. For further information, visit loveandbananas.com.

Q: What initially brought you to Thailand and Cambodia?

Bell: A family friend, David Casselman, who owns the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary, had been looking for 10 years with Lek to rescue two elephants to release onto the sanctuary. He finally found them and I got an email saying, “We’re going to release them. Anybody who wants to come and watch this can.” And it hit me. I said, “I have to film this. It’s going to be a short (film). It’s going to be a happily-ever-after story.” I pitched the project to Change for Balance Productions, which was onboard from Day 1. Before we knew it, we were in Cambodia.

When we got there, it was a disaster. The elephants were in horrendous condition. They were covered in abscesses and scars. They were malnourished and dehydrated. The forest was being illegally logged and poached. When I stepped off the plane, I asked what the smoky smell was and was told it from the clearcutting of the forest. Seventy-five percent of the Cambodian jungle—at least that was the percentage at the time—is gone. Through it all, I saw Lek fighting on the front lines with such hope to save the species every day. I knew that I had to use what I had at my disposal to tell this story. That’s when I decided to make this documentary.

Two and a half years later I brought my crew—three guys—when we went on the elephant rescue. For a documentary, it was extremely bare bones and guerilla. A lot of what we learned on the first trip was the sensitivity and care you have to have around the elephants. These elephants are extremely mentally and physically damaged. They’ve gone through years of abuse and suffering. For example, if we approached on one side of the Noi Na on the first day, she would get very upset. If the boom (mic) got in the way, or if we had an agenda, it wouldn’t happen. Knowing that, we all game-changed quickly, and made sure to get as close as we could and switch our gear to get us as close as we could for the audience, while being extremely sensitive to the elephants.

Q: Were there moments in the truck ride from Thailand to Cambodia where you wondered, “What am I doing?”

Bell: For sure. When Lek walked me through the truck before we (mounted the rescue), she pointed out the bed she made for herself and said, “We’ll be here with Noi Na because she’ll be scared and frightened.” Lek did not leave the truck—it was incredible.

When we first loaded Noi Na, she wasn’t eating or drinking and I had my hand on one of two beams that separated us from Noi Na, and Lek so delicately took my hand and moved it to the other side of the beam because she was afraid that Noi Na was going to crush my hand. It was at that moment that I thought, “What have I gotten myself into?” (She laughs.) It was a mix of, “Oh boy, I’m on this truck for the next 23 hours” and “How blessed and fortunate I am to have that seat next to Lek and next to Noi Na and to be able to tell this story?”

Q: How long were you at the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary once you retrieved Noi Na?

Bell: Only about a week and a half. The rescue happened immediately, pretty much the way it unfolded in the film. It happened within three days of when we landed. We packed a night bag and were on the rescue. We were there a week and a half afterwards for filming to see what would happen. Noi Na was in medical quarantine for about a month before she was released into the herd. They do that with all the rescued elephants to make sure they’re OK. That’s Lek’s protocol to make sure everybody’s safe.

I checked back with Lek, and it took a couple of months —sometimes it can take years for the rescued elephant to find a friend, and even then, it sometimes doesn’t happen—but it took her a couple of months and she found a friend. I learned last month from Lek that Noi Na has found a second friend.

Q: How is Noi Na adjusting to the sanctuary?

Bell: Lek calls her “a naughty old girl.” She has friends. She loves to swim in the river. She has a ton of energy. Lek told me that recently she’s been making a ton of noise in the evening, trumpeting and pounding around. They’re trying to figure out what it is. But as Lek said in the documentary, all of these elephants have gone through mental distress, so they’re psychologically damaged. To this day, Noi Na, when she eats food, she stands in one place and reached her trunk as far as she can, to get the food and eat it as though she is still chained. You can see in the film where she scratches he back leg with her trunk where a chain used to be.

Q: Is it like a phantom chain?

Bell: Exactly. Something like a phantom chain is so specific, so harrowing for this creature, which is such an intelligent and sentient being. The reason why captivity is so damaging is because they’re so intelligent that when left naturally in the wild, they travel miles and miles to forage for food and water and live and play and investigate, and when they don’t have that stimulation and access, and are in captivity, they begin to go crazy. You can see how it affects them acutely and specifically in every single elephant, just as it would a human. It was shocking to learn that.

Q: Audiences may want to know what they can do to help save these Asian elephants.

Bell: That’s a huge part of the release of the film. We launched an impact campaign. We’ve created our website—www.loveandelephants.com—to be a hub for immediate action. There’s a petition you can sign. You can sign a humane traveler pledge. Also, the key to saving the species is education, so we have social media resources that you can grab and post. When people know better, they do better. We’ve partnered with GreaterGood, which has launched The Love & Bananas Fund, inspired by the film. It’s currently raising money for Lek’s wish list and to get an elephant out of Laos.

It was my goal with this film to make change but to also make change accessible with the same spirt of hope and victory with which Lek works. It’s such an honor to partner with GreaterGood to do this.

Also, if “Love & Bananas” isn’t at a theater near you, you can bring it to a community with a community screening, an in-home screening or a school screening. We have the resources to bring this to an interested community, big or small.

Q: As a first-time filmmaker, what did you learn?

Bell: I just released an e-book called “Shoot it, Sell It, Show It: How I Made an Independent Film with Grit & Google.” I kept a journal of my experience for the past five years. And it’s all the tips, tricks and pieces of advice that I learned to help inspire other filmmakers, to help them and save them any heartbreaks that I went through.

I learned a lot from Lek, who has used the press and the media as her main form of dissent to protect herself and her work. She goes with a camera around her neck everywhere to document what’s happening to the elephants and herself. She has a film team with her as a form of protection. I’m so impressed that my generation and the younger generation, which is who we wanted to target, and make it appealing and fun, to see an animal movie. I want to introduce everybody to Lek. There are a lot of followers in this world, but very few heroes, and Lek is a hero of mine, so I can’t wait to get this message out there.

This review is from a girl I know who didn’t want her name to be public, but what she witnessed was awful, and this needs to be addressed.

I wanted to share my experience volunteering at ElephantsWorld in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, in hopes that no one will go there when visiting Thailand. Please be sure to do all your research when visiting anything involving animal tourism. This place has fantastic Trip Advisor reviews, and caught all us volunteers by surprise. If you’re interested, the following is the review I posted on their facebook page. DO NOT SUPPORT ELEPHANTS WORLD!!!

I just completed 30 days of volunteering at ElephantsWorld and I struggle to find the words to describe my experience. This is NOT a sanctuary. It is NOT nonprofit (as it says on all the brochures and website). I beg you NOT to spend your money and come here, it will only contribute to the current construction of a spa as well as the purchasing of more elephants- when the ones already here are not taken care of. I should also mention that about half the elephants here are paid for monthly and rented, not donated, in order to maintain the heavy flow of tourism this business gets. This review is directed only at the owner, Mr. Samart, and his wife Fawn, who would both be better suited for the poaching industry. A large group of us volunteers brought up all of the following issues of what happens “behind closed doors” to the two of them in two separate meetings last week, where we offered our concerns accompanied by constructive ideas all directed to improve the welfare and lives of the elephants residing here. After the meeting we were told things would begin to change. The next morning we learned the volunteer program had been cancelled.

There is no maximum amount of people allowed to visit per day. The owner sets a maximum, and when it is reached, he simply increases the maximum limit to accomodate for as many visitors- and as much money- as he can get per day. This means that one volunteer tour guide could have up to 15 people in their group washing ONE elephant at the end of the day. With this many people surrounding one elephant, they get distressed and nervous, as evidenced by them rocking back and forth in the water. If you’re wondering if they are enjoying “bath time” with this many people, take a step back and watch the mahouts with their bullhooks, which are always hooked onto the elephants in the water to force them to stay in. You can even see elephants attempting to get out and the mahouts forcing them to get back in for the tourists to continue washing (they do this, of course, because the Mr. Samart tells them to). To be clear, bathing the elephants is an activity for tourists, not for elephants. They are animals and are more than capable of bathing themselves. They are made to do “tricks” such as spray water at the tourists, something they learned in the past through abuse and submission. Some elephants (even ones that got the most nervous in the water with people) were forced into getting bathed by tourists up to three times a day.

The motto “we work for the elephants, the elephants not for us” couldn’t be more false. These elephants are NOT free, they are on a schedule 364 days a year with up to 150 visitors a day. No, they never get time off nor time to roam around free. Baby elephant Spy has a foot issue that needs to be treated by the vet students (students, because the owner won’t pay for a veterinarian) in healthcare every day. However, if Spy is running behind schedule that day then she skips healthcare, since the owner wants to make sure every visitor gets to be around the baby- the pride and joy of ElephantsWorld. Priorities.

Speaking of babies, let’s talk about Jarunee. She’s an elephant that was away for several weeks during my time at EW. Where was she? She was transported to a city up north to be raped by male elephants, in hopes that she would get pregnant so ElephantsWorld could have a new baby elephant for tourists to gawk at and wash. When that didn’t work, the owner decided to purchase a new tusked male elephant to impregnante another one of the females. I say purchased because this elephant came from a village, not a trekking camp, but apparently it looks “cool” to have an elephant with tusks here. So now he’s breeding into captivity. How’s that for a “sanctuary”?

What’s sad about this purchase is that EW already has another male named Johnny, who is 10 years old, and has gotten increasingly more aggressive over his 6 years at EW (which happens with male elephants- this is a fact and can be expected). Instead of buying Johnny a bullpen to give him the area he needs to move around, they have had him tied to a tree for the last one year- all day and all night. When confronting the owner about Johnny, he says there is no money to give Johnny what he needs, yet he just purchased a new elephant. Where else is your money going? Probably to the SPA and BAR being built at ElephantsWorld- which is apparently more important than the welfare of the elephants.

The day the new male elephant arrived from his village they walked him straight off the truck into the water for my group to wash. They put a MASSIVE tusked elephant in a new environment with a new mahout after a several hour journey straight into the water with visitors. They did NOT know his temperament or how he would react. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so nervous watching this happen or so thankful that luckily nothing did happen. The owner’s wife ordered this of course, and said it’s ok because she heard he was a “nice elephant.” Two days later this elephant nearly killed someone. Another day I was there one of the most violent elephants charged at a group of tourists, had she not been chained to the tree someone could have been killed. There are NO safety standards here, what’s important to the owner is that the visitors are able to see as many elephants as possible during their day there, regardless of the safety of visitors or the welfare of the elephants. There are many elephants during mud bath time that are incredibly violent (one of which ripped someones arm off in the past) and shouldn’t be around people at all. But in the owners eyes- the more the merrier!

Let’s talk about the mahouts, who the owner and his wife treat worse than animals. They are all hardworking refugees who put their lives on the line everyday with these unpredictable animals. They are paid next to nothing, lower than thai minimum wage, with not enough money to afford food or basic life necessities. The owner recently took their kitchen away and they are not even allowed to drink the WATER at ElephantsWorld like the rest of us. What happens to all the leftover food from the buffet-style lunch and dinners you ask? It gets fed to the dogs.

I urge you to please spend/donate your money elsewhere. I wish I could tell you your money was contributing to the construction of a bullpen for Johnny, or healthcare for the sick and old elephants, or the hiring of a real veterinarian and not students (who are amazing and caring and do a fantastic job with the limited tools and resources they are given!). But I can’t. Your money is going to the purchasing of more elephants so EW can continue breeding into captivity and obtaining more elephants that won’t be properly cared for, and to the construction of a spa for overnight visitors.

Volunteering here was a horribly sad experience, with many tears shed by all of us. The only reason any of us stayed was to spread the truth to the visitors we guided, in hopes that honesty and transparency could make some positive impact. It seems that in the past the only changes made at EW by the owner were a result of negative Trip Advisor/social media reviews. I beg you, if you do come to this “sanctuary” please go into your experience with open eyes and leave an honest review. Hopefully this review will make some positive impact in the lives of these magnificent animals, who deserve a better and more free life where they’re truthfully NOT working for humans anymore.

Thank you all so much for your comments and caring words! Please feel free to copy and paste the text (apparently it can’t be shared) to post for yourself! The only way to stop businesses like this is to stop the heavy volume of tourism it gets. Since posting this two weeks ago, the new male has been chained to a tree on all four legs and they have purchased a new pregnant violent female.

For all of those talking about going to/volunteering at another sanctuary, I believe a good rule of thumb is this- if it offers an activity that is for tourists and NOT for elephants, it is not a sanctuary (in my opinion). For example, elephants are fully capable of feeding and bathing themselves, they absolutely do not need people to do it for them. Activities such as filling fruit baskets based on their different dietary needs and then giving them the fruit to eat for themselves, and planting/cutting corn are great activities that help and do not disrupt the elephants’ environment! Ideally, in a sanctuary there should be no contact with the elephants, only observation. Interaction benefits humans, not elephants.