The mist is rising, same as usual, the winter visitor wagtails are back in town, the Doi Tung coffee tastes the same, there are three guests on eles down in the camp and everything is as it should be.  But there is a nagging feeling that something is missed, something ought to be remembered...

   ...and then it hits, this day, three years ago, with almost the same cast of working elephants and mahouts the Anantara Elephant Camp, indeed the whole hotel, opened for business and welcomed our first guests.

   My, my, haven't there been some changes since then?  I think I've lost some hair and gained some wrinkles, the mahouts all seem to be ageless still; Yom, then a sprightly 60-year-old has retired twice and come back once; Tantawan the sweetest Aunty ele has gone to where she can be the most useful; Amp, Oil and Wandi have become permanent fixtures; according to the formula Janpen has topped 4 tonnes and the others (mahouts and eles) have got a little fatter - though I'm still the same weight I always ever was, wonder why?..

   ...oh and then there are the rescues, the babies and the six eles and thirteen mahouts working at Four Seasons.  I don't think we can yet claim to be a professional, well oiled machine but perhaps we've learned a thing or two and perhaps the unlubricated parts are our charm anyway?

   If the books are correct and each elephant eats 250kg a day, then we've gone through 1,094,000 kilos of fodder in that time (one of the years was a leap year - which saved us a tonne!) just with the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre elephants - I'll leave it to the accountants to tell you how much that cost us, but it was worth it!

   Anyway, in celebration, long term guests, supporters, friends and followers Derek and Shirley Baker have presented the mahouts with a case of beer and a fridge to keep it cool.  So here's to another three years - see you before 2009!

   So, enough of my blather, on with the gratuitous photos - not of my eles, but I was in the Mae Taeng camp North of Chiang Mai the other day for my own nefarious purposes (more later I hope) and could not help taking a few photos of their breeding programme in action and the results. 


 
...and lastly, proof that even being dressed for work shouldn't be considered a barrier to pro-creation, the second elephant mating photograph in the blog (the male in that case was also from Mae Taeng, must be something in the water down there), some may say I have a fixation!