Elephants can play football

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Right then, Elephants playing football and Darts, now this is right up my street. A few KM out of Chiang Mai and off to an Elephant Farm to see them at work and play. First of all when you get there they take a bat with their Mahoots (keepers) and generally lark about in the water. The show then beginbs with some baby elephants dancing, playing harmonica and taking hats off their keepers and putting then back on. The best bits though undoubtedly was the 3 elephants having a penalty shootout, it was like watching Marlon Harewood on a good day, nothing close to threatening the keeper..............but then with his last pen, Elephant No 1 forces the keeper into a great save, he runs off celebrating so Elephant No 2 picks up the ball in his trunk sprints to the goal, flicks it up and volleys it in. I went mad, everyone else just clapped!!!! They then played darts, bursting balloons with the big darts and then to round it off each Elephant painted a picture with a brush in his trunk, the pictures were all of flowers and trees and honestly were unbelievably good. It all sounds cruel, even as I write this it sounds cruel, but I don't think it is, they all look well treated and healthy and happy. It is one of them things I guess you just have to see and make your own mind up before you judge, but we ceratainly enjoyed it, and at the end one came round and put a hat on our heads and patted it down. I had a quick chat with one of the guys there and he said all the Elephants are born in captivity and cannot be returned to the wild. They are trained to work over a number of months/years and are incedibly intelligent and genuinely enjoy what they do, not sure how the Elephants said all that but you get the point....................................Afterwards got chatting to some old Swiss fella on the bus who was mates with Otmar Hitzfeld as he had coached the Swiss team he supports years ago, a very small team now in the Swiss 2nd divison and general European football, was great..............Becks was loving it!!!!!!!!

We are off to Pai tomorrow, pronounced 'bye' in Thai, but obviously I will be calling it Pie for the entire time................any steak and kidney per chance.........................

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Photos

Harewood
Harewood

You can keep your hat on
You can keep your hat on

Tree painting by an elephant!
Tree painting by an elephant!

Comments

[TIM SHORT]

MCJOBS
Yo! Was there any stannies involved in these elephant goals? I bet they are happier than those in McJobs, and there are kids working in much worse conditions in Thailand I'm sure!