Feels like home (eles in a time of flood)
...let it never be said that in Thailand we don't go out of our way to empathise with our guests.
About a week ago now (I've been on my travels again) I was having lunch in a local café, the TV blaring exciting Thai, mafia and magic soap operas (great way to make money, by the way, bet on the outcome and who falls in love - the story and the characters are always the same and the setting seldom changes), the conversation in the café rose as the news came on.
Floods in certain Northern provinces, surprised looking officials trying to tell us this was most unexpected and I was getting ready to scan the papers for further expressions of complete surprise that it may rain in the rainy season and the seasonal calls for the Government to do something about it...
...I bent down to my noodles, looked up only to find more floods, this time all over the UK - again surprise, slightly more justified I would hope, that it might rain in summer time and calls for the Government to do something about it.
Somewhere else that should no longer be surprised by their yearly floods is Yunnan province in China, 200km up the big river and, just like the Severn in the UK - and perhaps many other rivers if we stopped to watch them - we know that when we read about troubles upstream our river will rise a week later.
The baby camp on the Anantara grassland has long since been abandoned and, the day before, we had previously moved the grazing eles from the Four Seasons side to the sparse hill-top bamboo; sure enough, by the time I'd finished my noodles and got back to the afternoon mahout training we had a new bathing area, self flushing like the river, exotic and deep...
...that's the roof of our old baby camp...
...all smiles for the camera but a couple of eles are up to their old tricks, never mind, a dunking feels more natural than even our little pond...
...those of you who tried to walk up the ramp from the babies camp during the mango rains will remember how slippery this little hill is even when not under water; well, Makam's got it but it seems Nong Pleum is having some fun, four feet forward and in full reverse.
PS. For those of you who enjoy such figures, to date at 221.5mm we have had 7mm more than July last year and still 40mm short of 2005 - heading for an average.
About a week ago now (I've been on my travels again) I was having lunch in a local café, the TV blaring exciting Thai, mafia and magic soap operas (great way to make money, by the way, bet on the outcome and who falls in love - the story and the characters are always the same and the setting seldom changes), the conversation in the café rose as the news came on.
Floods in certain Northern provinces, surprised looking officials trying to tell us this was most unexpected and I was getting ready to scan the papers for further expressions of complete surprise that it may rain in the rainy season and the seasonal calls for the Government to do something about it...
...I bent down to my noodles, looked up only to find more floods, this time all over the UK - again surprise, slightly more justified I would hope, that it might rain in summer time and calls for the Government to do something about it.
Somewhere else that should no longer be surprised by their yearly floods is Yunnan province in China, 200km up the big river and, just like the Severn in the UK - and perhaps many other rivers if we stopped to watch them - we know that when we read about troubles upstream our river will rise a week later.
The baby camp on the Anantara grassland has long since been abandoned and, the day before, we had previously moved the grazing eles from the Four Seasons side to the sparse hill-top bamboo; sure enough, by the time I'd finished my noodles and got back to the afternoon mahout training we had a new bathing area, self flushing like the river, exotic and deep...
...that's the roof of our old baby camp...
...all smiles for the camera but a couple of eles are up to their old tricks, never mind, a dunking feels more natural than even our little pond...
...those of you who tried to walk up the ramp from the babies camp during the mango rains will remember how slippery this little hill is even when not under water; well, Makam's got it but it seems Nong Pleum is having some fun, four feet forward and in full reverse.
PS. For those of you who enjoy such figures, to date at 221.5mm we have had 7mm more than July last year and still 40mm short of 2005 - heading for an average.
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