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Showing posts from March, 2008

Translation

Postcard from Thailand

Thursday the 13th. March is National Elephant Day in Thailand so I have had the guilty pleasure of riding one. Elephants are revered in Thailand often featuring outside shopfronts and cafes and in very large sculptures - the one at the elephant museum is said to be 14 storeys high. Although I have mixed feelings about the exploitation of animals for human entertainment, there are various reasons for making exceptions here. The first is that this is one of several sanctuaries for elephants no longer needed since logging became illegal in 1989. These activities help to provide food for the elephants and an income for rural people who would otherwise be unemployed. You can see that the surrounding countryside is rather barren looking. Were it not for tourism, perhaps no one would bother about the remaining elephants. As it is there are only 4,000 left where once there were over 100,000. I suppose the obvious thing to do would be to make a donation, create alternative employment for their