Surin Elephant Round-up elephants in ancient battle demonstrations of strength and skills

Posted on November 21, 2007 | Filed Under Thailand

Tourists feed and play with elephants at festival in north-eastern Thailand

Surin Elephant Round-up: A north-eastern province, Surin is famous not only for its greatest number of elephants in Thailand, but also for its world - famous elephant round-up. The show features elephant football, elephant race and hunt, elephants in ancient battle and demonstrations of their strength and skills

SURIN, Thailand - Explosions from cannon fire filled the air as warriors astride silk-bedecked elephants swept through a battlefield in north-eastern Thailand.

Hundreds of actors and their pachyderm steeds re-enacted the wartime tactics of centuries ago as part of Thailand’s 47th annual Elephant Round-up over the weekend.

The festival, which attracts thousands of tourists to the small city of Surin, 460 kilometres (285 miles) north-east of Bangkok, celebrates the elephant as both a noble patriotic symbol and a long-time companion of local tribal minorities.

For a week, members of the region’s Kui minority celebrate the elephant, holding daily parades and lining the streets with treats for the elephants to eat.

The grand finale is the weekend round-up, in which some 300 elephants perform circus tricks, engage in tugs of war, and take part in spiritual ceremonies for tourists and locals alike, in addition to playing at war.

Pun Sen, a member of the Kui, is a mahout _ a traditional elephant trainer _ who is as much a companion to the beasts as a boss. His current charge is Ben Sen, a 19-month-old elephant with a playful demeanour attending his first round-up.

“He loves to play with the other elephants,” Pun said, as Ben feasted on bananas offered by giddy German tourists. “And he loves all the attention he gets.”

When Pun commanded Ben to “Sing a song!” the elephant responded with an atonal moan like an off-key whale, and then reached with his trunk for more fruit from the obliging tourists.

According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Elephant Round-up has become one of the most popular attractions for tourists to the north-east.

For the elephants, who used to cut a mighty swath as logging animals just half-a-century ago _ but have since been marginalized by industrialization _ it is a rare occasion to relive their former glory.

Early last century Thailand’s domesticated pachyderms numbered some 100,000, while hundreds of thousands roamed wild, according to Bangkok-based NGO Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation.

Today there are fewer than 3,000 domesticated elephants eking out a living as tourist attractions or with keepers who roam Bangkok and other cities to beg. There are another estimated 3,000 wild elephants in national parks and other sanctuaries.

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