Elephants Elephants Elephants

Teacher and class who interviewed me. What is your name? Where are you from? Do you like Thailand? Do you like Thai food? etc. What a great learning experience this teacher devised!

Crossing the finish line with my bag of rice

Procession of elephants

Here come the elephants!

I have never seen so many elephants, more than 300 they say. They are all sizes from really cute looking babies to enormous powerhouses. It is really thrilling to be so close but a bit frightening too. I did see a minor incident when an elephant got irked with a handler and grabbed the handler with his trunk and threw him to the ground, but there seemed to be no harm done. There are warnings not to excite the elephants with flashes or surprise approaches. I am careful and most of the time keep my distance.

Yesterday the elephant procession occurred in the morning ending with an elephant buffet. The procession was down the length of Surin's main street starting at 0800. First came a marching band and you may guess what they played. Answer is below. After a few dignitaries and beauties on floats came the 2 hour parade of elephants. Sellers hawked sugar cane to feed which the trunk would delicately take from your hand and put into the mouth. If you handed the elephant paper money he would pass it in his trunk up to the handler on his back. I had a few bananas in my backpack. After an elephant probed my pack I decided it would be best to share my bananas. Upon arrival at the end of the route there were long tables set up with sugar cane, pineapples, watermelons and other fruits and veggies which were provided by banks and other businesses and the elephants would line up at a spot and very politely and orderly eat what was in front of them. There seemed to be no aggressive or piggish behaviour.

There was a large crowd gathered at the culmination and an announcer requested that some of the farang (foreigners) come forward to participate in a relay. In the course of the morning I had met a 3 Thai friends who encouraged me to participate so I went forward. The first contest was to swing a gourd between your legs attached to a string to knock a lime past the first goal. Easy once I got the rhythm. Next You had to eat a plate full of fruit, banana, watermelon, etc. Again, not so hard. Then came the balloon blow. You had to blow until the balloon popped and that was HARD. Lastly, was the rice tote in which I had to carry a burlap sack of rice across the finish line. I came in 3rd and won a tee shirt. Hooray! Actually it was a lot of fun and later in the day I was in the market and several food vendors recognized me from the contest. My 15 minutes?

Answer: The band played Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk" which I think I last heard in 1965. How incongruous can you get?