Surin Elephant festival - 1

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Thursday November, 15th 2007

Tonight is the contest of the best elephant feeding carriage. Institutions in Surin have decorated carriages with food for the elephants and young people in traditional costumes present the carriage or danse. It's a nice atmosphere though I sometimes feel a bit alone in the crowd. Later, there was a large performance of traditional danse and music starting with Apsara dancing (no picture of Apsara as the crowd was so dense that I could not take a picture that was worth the place on the computer).

Friday November, 16th 2007
Elephant feeding. All the huge amount of fruits, vegetables, sugar canes, sweet potatoes that were there yesterday are to be eaten by hundreds of elephants. As we just sit behind the food stalls, it is possible to touch the trump of the elephant or to feed it. It's quite impressive to see a trafic jam of elephants as they circulate in this street. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures just movies. I'll put one online as soon as I figured out how to do it.

After the feeding, it's possible to have a ride on a elephant or to walk along side the elephants. In both case, it's an experience. On the back, you can see the crowd of elephants walking around. From below, you can see those huge masses towering you and trying to circulate in a street that has suddenly become very narrow.

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