Whippy sticks and local pop music (the biggest show in town)
...you've never seen anything like it, even the hardened folks of Chiang Saen town have never seen anything like it.
Twenty eight elephants, about 60 mahouts, wives and formidable mahout matriarchs, children (we're not quite sure if they belong to the mahouts or the town), the odd chicken and some poodle puppies. They're all living in an abandoned market place and some local unused land just outside town.
The polo field is in practice mode and that draws quite a crowd as the assembled international players struggle to find their eye and acclimatize 'their' mahouts to their favourite playing style. Are the eles smaller this year? Are the sticks whippier? What language to the mahouts speak again? (whisky after play) Can someone please change the CD on the PA system?
But this is nothing compared with show outside town when the eles go home, we can truly say the circus is in town, back at the polo camp everyone turns out to gain merit by feeding the eles, the mahouts play it for all they're worth (last night they were fishing at midnight - I haven't worked that one out - but I don't ask too many questions).
I am still in Hannibal mode, last minute problems, fodder truck bogged an hour from home (Amp sorted that one out), tough mahouts in trouble because they forgot their mosquito nets, which toilets are we supposed to use...
...but we're getting there - I'm ten years older and play hasn't started yet! I am hoping, as time progresses and we get a routine going, to transform from Hannibal the worried general to Hannibal of A-Team fame, cool and unflappable.
I love it when a plan comes together!
More from the Bangkok Post
Twenty eight elephants, about 60 mahouts, wives and formidable mahout matriarchs, children (we're not quite sure if they belong to the mahouts or the town), the odd chicken and some poodle puppies. They're all living in an abandoned market place and some local unused land just outside town.
The polo field is in practice mode and that draws quite a crowd as the assembled international players struggle to find their eye and acclimatize 'their' mahouts to their favourite playing style. Are the eles smaller this year? Are the sticks whippier? What language to the mahouts speak again? (whisky after play) Can someone please change the CD on the PA system?
But this is nothing compared with show outside town when the eles go home, we can truly say the circus is in town, back at the polo camp everyone turns out to gain merit by feeding the eles, the mahouts play it for all they're worth (last night they were fishing at midnight - I haven't worked that one out - but I don't ask too many questions).
I am still in Hannibal mode, last minute problems, fodder truck bogged an hour from home (Amp sorted that one out), tough mahouts in trouble because they forgot their mosquito nets, which toilets are we supposed to use...
...but we're getting there - I'm ten years older and play hasn't started yet! I am hoping, as time progresses and we get a routine going, to transform from Hannibal the worried general to Hannibal of A-Team fame, cool and unflappable.
I love it when a plan comes together!
More from the Bangkok Post
Suppose there wouldn't be many takers for a truckload of ele poo in the auction. The party's got a big mention in "Where to be, What to do, How to book it" in the Daily Telegraph's Ultratravel supplement, complete with with big (38cm x 25cm) piccy of ele polo.
Good luck. Hope you've found your whistle.
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