Wanted: baby-elephant Nhung Nhing
Bored tourists on Phuket
The only way to find Nhung Nhing is to go to Phuket ourselves. We take the night train to Surat Thani. At the animal registration office on Phuket we are being helped kindly. All elephants in Phuket are in an excel file which we may go through ourselves.
Anxiously we look at each name, each age, each owner and date of arrival. There is not a single elephant in it which could be Nhung Nhing. The vet who runs the office says that if Nhung Nhing would have been sold or changed name meanwhile, she should still be in this file. He also tells that there are now 185 elephants registered on Phuket, but that there are for more illegal elephants. He loves his wife and child too much to get himself involved in this
We look for the name of the owner in the telephonebook, without success. This leaves us to visiting all shows on Phuket, and ask the mahouts. They know where the elephants come from and might remember the story of Nhung Nhing. We make flyers to distribute among the mahouts. Wanted: baby elephant Nhung Nhing from Surin. Reward 500 Bath. With the tuk tuk we drive all over Phuket with the rain falling constantly. In one day we have to visit all shows. We find a baby from Surin two years of age, of whom we think for a moment it might be Nhung Nhing. But she has been bought together with her little brother who is standing a little further away.
The mahouts try to think with us, and take extra flyers with them to give to other mahouts. On a private beach of a luxury hotel we also find a young elephant. He goes from one laying chair to the next one to enjoy the tourists. The tourists are so bored, that they don’t even bother to look up from their books. The elephants of FantaSea, the biggest elephantshow on Phuket, turn out to be registered in Bangkok. If Nhung Nhing has been sold legally we might find her back in this register. But chances are bigger that she has been traded illegally. Has she been shipped of from Phuket to another country? Have they used her papers to get another elephant to Thailand? Have her papers been sold?
Back in the train to Chiang Mai Lee is being called by mahouts constantly. One of them is even very sure he has found Nhung Nhung. Her name has been changed, but she is two years old, comes from Surin and the mahout comes up with the name of the owner we have met in Surin. We would love to return to Phuket immediately, but there is still to much uncertainty. Lee asks the mahout for more details: characteristics of mother, name new owner, an explanation why papers are missing. Once we are bit more sure of things, we certainly will return to Phuket. Then there are two ways of finding out if she is really Nhung Nhing: the reaction of mother Sri Nuan, and DNA comparison of mother and daughter. After all the disappointments on Phuket, we find ourselves a bit relieved in the train, there’s still some light to be seen on the horizon. I do hope we will find her!
