Elephant in Bangkok

When I arrived in Bangkok, I read in a guide book that elephants are banned in the city of bangkok by Thaksin in recent years. Apparently it creates traffic congestion in the already congested country.

However, I almost could not believe my eyes when I spotted this surreal sight of seeing an elephant in the redlight district of Bangkok just a few roads down from my hotel! It was unbelievable. For a moment, this city monkey thought it could have been a giant model of a monkey or perhaps even a mechanical elephant.

When I tried to take photos, the keeper came over and tried to sell me sugarcanes. I gave the guy a 20B and then gave the sugarcane back to him. On hindsight, I wish I fed it to the elephant because who knows if the keepers were starving him or not. But being a money tree for the keepers, hopefully they do not starve him.



Unbelievably, on going to the next redlight street, we saw another elephant! This time it was a female with no tusk. They were all rather juvenile elephants, judging by their size.

Anyways, just unbelievable. And in the redlight district no less! Probably because these were the joints catered for tourists and with the large amount of people at night, it was the best time to bring out the illegal street performers.

Of course there are softhearted monkeys like me that would rather die than to see these animals suffer. Sigh. Felt so helpless.