Elephant World...

This weekend, I visited Surin to experience the Elephant Round-Up, meeting Mélanie and some of the teachers of Buached school who guided me through the city. It was really nice spending time together. Once again, I felt the infinite generosity of Thai people.

What happens at the Elephant Round-Up? The annual event is a celebration of the extraordinary strength of the elephant. It’s a tradition having its roots back to the times when the Roman Empire was failing. The only difference is, there was a huge populace of around 300,000 elephants out of which 100,000 were believed to be tamed at that time. However, today, there are only as few as 3500-4000 of them left.

What's the history of the festival? The festival started in the 1960s when the mahouts (elephant handlers) were looking for employment opportunities in the tourism industry after the civil war in Cambodia. Usually, this festival takes place in the third week of November during the weekends.The people of Surin province have been famous for centuries thanks to their adeptness at capturing and training elephants.

After experiencing this event, Mélanie and I made plans to go to an Elephant Sanctuary in Chiang Mai during one of our free weekends to volunteer for at least 1 day and help these incredible intelligent animals in an ethical way.

On Saturday, we also discovered the Silk Village in Surin where we could watch the creation of traditional Thai skirts and scarfs that are made in silk. One long skirt takes about 2 months to make! These are amazing handcrafted pieces, so no doubt what to buy for souvenirs anymore. It was an intense weekend that we ended with a nice refreshing Tea; and started with the best massage I've ever had.