Keitai

We saw a baby elephant last night at dinner.

I’ve always stayed away from elephant related exhibits in Thailand. Year ago, we rented a small house in the Phuket countryside. The island was hilly and there was no public transit so we bought a motorbike. Every afternoon we would ride out into the hills and often run into elephants on the side of the road. They weren’t wild of course. They belonged to one of the tourist parks and in the off hours, their handlers would take them for walks along the road.

Other than that, we preferred to stay away from elephants.

But at least the Phuket elephants were adult, lived on the edge of a big forest on a wonderful sunny island and got to wander around munching on stuff in their off hours. This poor guy stood no higher than me and here he was wandering around downtown Bangkok. He was on a side street near one of the busiest intersections in town and i’m still not quite sure why he was there. His handlers (two young boys) obviously wanted money from passers-by but clearly no-one was interested. As a matter of fact, our normally lively neighbourhood restaurant fell completely silent as the little guy stood there occasionally crying out and was finally led away toward the new mall on the corner.

At least if they’d shown up on Khao San Road they would have made a bit of money from gullible tourists and might have spent the night at one of the neighbourhood Wats but everyone in my predominately Thai neighbourhood just stared at them awkwardly. Best not to encourage them but still…As it is, I can’t imagine how they got to my neighbourhood in the first place. They must have walked for days from the countryside…