Baby Elephants

Isn't he cute?!?
While in Ayutthaya we were able to visit an elephant kraal. (A kraal is a wooden stockade that was used to round up wild elephants.) It was one of the more memorable parts of our trip to the ancient city.

There were many elephants to see and, surprisingly -- for me anyway -- they were much smaller than I expected. (Asian elephants are apparently smaller than their African cousins.) But the focus of all the attention was two baby elephants. They were so cute! Although they spent a lot of the time close to their mothers, they regularly ventured out to give one of us a sniff or a seemingly affectionate 'bump' with their bodies. They even grabbed for our hands with their trunks a few times! Although they look soft and fuzzy, their 'fur' is actually very bristle-y hair and their skin feels is quite rough to the touch.

While the babies were quite rough-and-tumble, you could see that all the foreign visitors were tying to be careful in their contact with the babies. For myself, this was because (a) I'm not used to being that close to wild animals so I am very aware that even though it might be well-trained or domesticated, I still understand that it is a wild animal; (b) the mothers were only a few feet away and who knew how they might react if we scared one of the babies by being too aggressive; and (c) you just don't pull on or yank on or try to climb on an animal. But then these local children came along and they were just so unpleasant! They were chasing the babies, jumping on them, pulling their ears and tails, trying to ride them, etc. Although the mother elephants didn't react negatively (perhaps they're used to this?), I was ready to smack a few of the kids on their behalf. Fortunately, the little (human) animals didn't stay long.

But it did make me wonder about what kind of life these elephants have. Although the babies were free to run around, the adult animals were chained by one leg. I suppose, being the size they are, they could escape if they really wanted to ...

For more photos, see our Thailand photo album.