Too tired to wake: The elephants of the night (Yui two'ey gets a second chance)
A couple of hits ago (a Sunday ago?) I wrote to you while I was still in Bangkok and was carrying a mood that was as murky as the river, leading a double life and both ends of the candle giving off fumes had put me into a tired sulk and I was pining for the cool, clean air of the Golden Triangle.
Between the meetings and the hi-so hotel stuff; getting on TV, the welcome parties, the farewell parties and all the usual Bangkok bunderbust we had been inhabiting the more rotten corners of the big mango trying to find out a little more about the street elephants and their mahouts.
Armed with a mobile phone, Khun Lord speaking Suay and a bemused taxi driver we set off on a less than magical mystery tour, after our fifth u-turn, under the dank daytime gloom shadow of a flyover we spotted two too-good-to-be-true rocks.
We parked up in an abandoned petrol station, where the taxi drivers hang out and eat noodles, and walked back through the puddles, the plastic and the grime.
Those of you who remember the glory days of Lawan's day time snoozes will remember how lightly a grown elephant will sleep during the day, always an ear flapping, even the most trusted two legged friends must approach quietly otherwise, bit like me when the boss catches me in my mid-afternoon 'just going down to the elephant camp' nap, it is up, to attention and "no, no, just resting my eyes - ummmm.... I can hear better with my eyes closed".
Tong Yui, sleeping like a baby beneath two major roads and between two more, opened an eye to look at a two legged stranger with funny yellow hair but couldn't summon the energy to even be wary.
When you're 16 and live on the streets even the shocking pink taxis thundering past fail to shock.
The mahouts, as ever, get my intense respect, this is no way to live and they know it, if you're going to camp with your ele it should be in a forest, but still here they live, a literal underclass beneath the wheels of 9,000,000 commuters, as they did in the jungle camps of just a couple of decades ago; better shelter from the rain, shame about the noise, the air quality and the neighbours (glue sniffing kids). Personally cleaner than I can manage from my hotel room and surviving, raising kids and perhaps - though not showing it - wondering where the old world went.
That evening, for old time's sake, we went to Sukhumvit Soi 7 where I first met Lord and Pleum all those years ago and then on to Soi Nana where we'd been tipped off that our new friends would be working, the photo is an experiment in flash free photography and not an indication of my chemical state - though they were late and I did have a few pints whilst waiting, we don't get pints or proper beer in the Golden Triangle.
At least Yui has a tail light, but in reality this is just clever mahouting, without one she's an illegal traffic hazard and eligible for a fine.
Hmmmm.... a familiar face, our mahout K. Sompong's younger brother with his family elephant (K. Sompong drives Nong Pleum for his father-in-law K. Lord) he's still young and still enjoying the city life, making too much money to be tempted away - but young people learn, or get told by their wives, so we'll get him and his ele in the end!
PS. This is a low resolution photo so I'd like to reassure you that I am the one taking the picture and that the blonde guy in the grey shirt talking to the young ladies in the background is not me. I was here strictly for business, as, it must be said, are the young ladies in question and the younger, begging, ladies in the middle ground - three different businesses despite a few parallels and a few crossed paths. I like my business!
No shocked e-mails to Aoy or my Mum please! I have witnesses and never go to these places without them.
...no place for a sixteen year old, four legs, big nose or not.
On the streets but still revered! His parents may own a gold shop in a red light district but this child's excitement at being allowed to stay up in his pyjamas and feed the ele was the same as that of the village kids we bring into the elephant camps to meet our giants.
This funny old world has changed but the elephants and the Thai reverence for the eles has not changed, the kids still have some wide eyed innocence, even here.
An apparently random photograph taken on the way to the airport, but we reckon that directly beneath our wheels, beneath another high speed highway, soundly sleeps our friend Tong Yui, desperately trying to recharge her batteries for another night walking the streets.
But now for a small surprise, having bored (shocked and awed?) you with my holiday snaps one more photo, taken yesterday...
Yep, you guessed it from the title and I already told you I like happy endings, on the left is Tong Yui (Yui two'ey) with her new younger sister Yui and Bua Tong in the Anantara camp.
One of the quicker, more fortuitous rescues we've managed but Anantara needed an extra mahout training elephant for the high season now that Makam's on maternity leave, we had been trawling through the usual suspects when we stumbled on Lung Sao and Tong Yui.
Sometimes life and this funny old world just turn that way for us all.
Between the meetings and the hi-so hotel stuff; getting on TV, the welcome parties, the farewell parties and all the usual Bangkok bunderbust we had been inhabiting the more rotten corners of the big mango trying to find out a little more about the street elephants and their mahouts.
Armed with a mobile phone, Khun Lord speaking Suay and a bemused taxi driver we set off on a less than magical mystery tour, after our fifth u-turn, under the dank daytime gloom shadow of a flyover we spotted two too-good-to-be-true rocks.
We parked up in an abandoned petrol station, where the taxi drivers hang out and eat noodles, and walked back through the puddles, the plastic and the grime.
Those of you who remember the glory days of Lawan's day time snoozes will remember how lightly a grown elephant will sleep during the day, always an ear flapping, even the most trusted two legged friends must approach quietly otherwise, bit like me when the boss catches me in my mid-afternoon 'just going down to the elephant camp' nap, it is up, to attention and "no, no, just resting my eyes - ummmm.... I can hear better with my eyes closed".
Tong Yui, sleeping like a baby beneath two major roads and between two more, opened an eye to look at a two legged stranger with funny yellow hair but couldn't summon the energy to even be wary.
When you're 16 and live on the streets even the shocking pink taxis thundering past fail to shock.
The mahouts, as ever, get my intense respect, this is no way to live and they know it, if you're going to camp with your ele it should be in a forest, but still here they live, a literal underclass beneath the wheels of 9,000,000 commuters, as they did in the jungle camps of just a couple of decades ago; better shelter from the rain, shame about the noise, the air quality and the neighbours (glue sniffing kids). Personally cleaner than I can manage from my hotel room and surviving, raising kids and perhaps - though not showing it - wondering where the old world went.
That evening, for old time's sake, we went to Sukhumvit Soi 7 where I first met Lord and Pleum all those years ago and then on to Soi Nana where we'd been tipped off that our new friends would be working, the photo is an experiment in flash free photography and not an indication of my chemical state - though they were late and I did have a few pints whilst waiting, we don't get pints or proper beer in the Golden Triangle.
At least Yui has a tail light, but in reality this is just clever mahouting, without one she's an illegal traffic hazard and eligible for a fine.
Hmmmm.... a familiar face, our mahout K. Sompong's younger brother with his family elephant (K. Sompong drives Nong Pleum for his father-in-law K. Lord) he's still young and still enjoying the city life, making too much money to be tempted away - but young people learn, or get told by their wives, so we'll get him and his ele in the end!
PS. This is a low resolution photo so I'd like to reassure you that I am the one taking the picture and that the blonde guy in the grey shirt talking to the young ladies in the background is not me. I was here strictly for business, as, it must be said, are the young ladies in question and the younger, begging, ladies in the middle ground - three different businesses despite a few parallels and a few crossed paths. I like my business!
No shocked e-mails to Aoy or my Mum please! I have witnesses and never go to these places without them.
...no place for a sixteen year old, four legs, big nose or not.
On the streets but still revered! His parents may own a gold shop in a red light district but this child's excitement at being allowed to stay up in his pyjamas and feed the ele was the same as that of the village kids we bring into the elephant camps to meet our giants.
This funny old world has changed but the elephants and the Thai reverence for the eles has not changed, the kids still have some wide eyed innocence, even here.
An apparently random photograph taken on the way to the airport, but we reckon that directly beneath our wheels, beneath another high speed highway, soundly sleeps our friend Tong Yui, desperately trying to recharge her batteries for another night walking the streets.
But now for a small surprise, having bored (shocked and awed?) you with my holiday snaps one more photo, taken yesterday...
Yep, you guessed it from the title and I already told you I like happy endings, on the left is Tong Yui (Yui two'ey) with her new younger sister Yui and Bua Tong in the Anantara camp.
One of the quicker, more fortuitous rescues we've managed but Anantara needed an extra mahout training elephant for the high season now that Makam's on maternity leave, we had been trawling through the usual suspects when we stumbled on Lung Sao and Tong Yui.
Sometimes life and this funny old world just turn that way for us all.
Posted by John Roberts at Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:55:00 GMT 
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Thailand Elephants
Categories: Golden Triangle Elephants, Thailand Elephants
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