Surin Elephant Village

The next day, Kitti gave me a ride to where I was supposed to meet Irrigation officials for my research. Along the way, we passed an Elephant Village. As I don't have many opportunities to visit elephant villages, I insisted that we stop.

The village is home to a number of elephants and their trainers. Traditionally, people in this area used to capture wild elephants and train them as domestic animals. They were used for logging, transport, and warfare. The last elephant hunt occurred about 50 years ago. Few forests remain in Thailand, and no truly wild elephants do.

Instead the villagers train the offspring of their elephants. 

Today, though, there is little use for elephant logging, as most of the forests are gone. Also, elephants are an out-dated mode of warfare. The beasts must earn their keep somehow, as 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of food per day doesn't come cheap.

So they cater to tourists by learning tricks.

Isn't that the cutest elephant pose you've ever seen?

An Australian in the audience bought the painting before I had the sense to bid on it.

Go, Elephant, Go!

Slam Dunk!

It's better than having the elephants be culled or starve to death.

Truthfully, the elephants seemed to enjoy it. They are obviously more intelligent than dogs or horses, and it appeared that they took pleasure in completing the tasks given them. They loved the sugar cane treats they got afterwards.

Speaking of sugar cane, I was able to feed some to elephant twins.

They were sure excited to get a hold of sugar cane. Almost as excited as I was to give it to them. I got a lot of elephant snot on my hands that day.

I have forgotten exactly how many elephants live in this village, but the number was somewhere around 50. They come in all ages, as elephants live as long as a human (approximately 80 years). The twins were two years old. This one was 19.

 Anyways, the time with the elephant village came to an end. On the way out of town, I saw one of the elephants on his way home.

I love elephants.

If there is anyone out there (with $32,000 plus whatever it takes to buy 440 pounds of food a day and plenty of sugar cane) who wants to buy me a birthday present, I have one picked out.