I didn't believe her at all initially but then at Maesa Elephant Camp, the 78 elephants are indeed in their natural habitat. They DO live in the forest (it's even got a river!) with their mahouts and the camp doesn't tolerate abuse of any sort cos any mahout suspected of abuse will be fired. They also have vets who regularly check on the elephants and they breed the elephants for conservation too. So I felt better there and then...and guess what? I was totally blown away by the amazing performance they put up...they looked genuinely happy unlike the elephants in Phuket who were in the hot sun on the street or on the beach away from their natural habitat...those poor pets....sigh....
Anyway, the elephants at Maesa are such intellegent bunch!!! Not only can they dance, play harmonica, play soccer, they can even PAINT....yes, no joke, these gentle giants PAINT...like a PRO!!! I'm not kidding you! See for yourself....
The elephant painter carrying its little painting kit...awww...
The Mahout preparing the paint (non toxic...yeah I asked)
Starting.....
Ohhhh what's that? Looks like a plant of sort?
Wow...it is a plant....
OMG....he's painting flowers!!!!!!!! A proper flower plant!!!
OMFG!!!! The elephant paints better than I do...despite my having 10 fingers...
Voila! The final product...available for sale and I immediately bought 2!
An abstract piece done by another elephant....nice..
This is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen in Thailand!!!! I'm so impressed I bought 2 paintings back cos I was literally speechless....They apparently handpick the smart elephants for painting class and training starts when they're about 4 years old and it'll take at least 3 to 4 months to train them before they can get decent....they're so smart!!! Ridley's Believe It Or Not actually did a program on this....and they were even on the Guinness World Record! The tour guide said the most expensive painting was sold at $4 million Thai Bhat which is about $250,000 SGD....now that's something....it's truly amazing and if you have the chance to go Chiang Mai, it's worth a visit....here's their website
I LOVE elephants!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment