Elephant festival Surin
Silver Flower exhausted at the festival
Even though diary’s are usually personal, I have hijacked Antoinette’s today (she is relaxing at the moment, I hope). Today is the 22nd of November, I am Liesbeth, I will be writing the book about Bring the Elephant Home together with Antionette. It’s nighttime and Antoinette, Lee and I are on the nighttrain towards Surat Thani, with the intention to arrive in Phuket tomorrow afternoon. Phuket?? It’s a long story.
After a long period of waiting for the necessary permits for the elephant-walk everything seems to be on a roll now. The filmcrew has arrived to make the documentary, I arrived to write the book and together we went to the elephantfestival in Surin, a town in the North-East. It’s an annual festival in the area where a lot of families have there own elephants. In former day they used the elephants for the heavy work, these days they are mostly used for begging and performing in shows. While we where there we saw some extraordinary things. Elephants playing football, painting on t-shirts, standing on their hind legs, playing the mouth harmonica and hoola-hooping with their trunks. History also was part of the show, with elephants performing on a battlefield. Some acts where very much Disney like,. but others where impressive and beautiful to watch. The only thing is that you enjoy it a lot less when you think of the awful training these animals have to go through to learn these tricks.
We had another goal though. The moment has finally arrived to find the elephants which we will be buying back their freedom. At the festival there are about 400 elephants, many of those elephants know the life of the streets all too well. You can see what it has done to them. Elephants which are rocking back and forth constantly, eyes which roll away in fear, foreheads which are a battlefield of scars and sometimes even fresh wounds. As we walk around we look at the ears, legs, eyes and skin, but who are we to say which elephant needs to be saved the most?
Forehead Silver Flower
Two elephants look definitely need our help badly. Duang Ngung or Silver Flower, a 6 year old teenager, stressed, depressed, her face looks ancient. Silver Flower has begged on the streets of Pattaya, but is now back in Surin for further training. She knows the basics but her mahout wants her to learn the special tricks like playing the harmonica. Her behaviour and the look in her eyes show what the training is doing to her.
Untie me!!
The second elephant is Sri Nuan or ‘hundred percent lady’ , says Lee who translated her name. According to the mahout she is 35 years old, but she is probably older. “Suey” the mahout whispers and points to the long fat tail full of hair. Huge ears, pink with black dots at the bottom, like her trunk. Big and slow. She is blind on one eye too. Her baby of 8 months has been sold last year. The baby works in an elephant show now the mahout says. And that is why we are on our way to Phuket. The baby is called Nhung Hning and when you ask Lee what that means he whispers: “when a boy and a girl say sweet things to each other” and saying so he makes some waving gestures. Does anybody dare to translate it?
Sri Nuan in front of our hotel in Surin
Tail of Sri Nuan…. wow!
We are searching for Nhunh Hning now, because Bring the Elephant Home wants to reunite her with her mother. The attentive reader has probably already noticed that it will be three elephants we will buy, in stead of two! Sometimes you just need to follow your heart and hope that others can follow you. So tell everyone there will probably be another four elephants legs added to the footsteps that need financing.
“Footsteps” is starting to have multiple meanings. Travelling to the Elephant Nature Park in Surin and from Surin to Bangkok, we see that Thailand is starting to look like The Netherlands: Bigger city’s. Lots of roads, the land in between isn’t full of cows, potatoes and corn, but it is full of rice, Tapoica and Eucalyptusfields. The natural areas where you could walk with the elephants are scarce. We are starting to understand the criticism: should you be walking here with elephants? Walking on the tarmack isn’t an option. The word “truck” is starting to pop up more and more in conversations about the walk. Maybe some parts of the walk will be done on wheels and the footsteps will be turned into elephant kilometers. However the important thing is that the elephants get bought their freedom and spend a dignified life at the park
If it is up to Antoinette it will be Silver Flower, Sri Nuan and Nhung Hning. That is why in the this will be our program for now:
- Find Nhung Hning in the elephant show in Phuket, a vacation island in the South of Thailand.
- Make deals with the owners of Silver Flower and Sri Nuan, with which we have already spoken, and who are willing to sell but are still asking too much money. We went to see the owners at their homes after the festival. The owner of Silver Flower told us that she is back in training again. We find her at a beautiful place near a rice field that seems to be a good home. But it soon becomes clear that they have brought her here because we where coming. She carefully comes up to us to meet us. On her head there is some fresh blood from the new sharp hook where her mahout is waving with, behind her ears there are wooden pins so she can’t turn her head. This is to prevent her from eating fresh leaves along the way, when she’s carrying tourists on her back.
- Getting the papers sorted for the sale. It sounds easy but you need nerves of steal and a cheerful character.
In the meantime it has become night and the train is heading south, will we find the baby? Will the owner be willing to sell her? Won’t the price be too high?
To be continued!
Filmcrew Nature Conservation Films in action: Producer Marjolein, cameraman Bob and soundengineer Martin.
