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Thailand’s Elephants

When it comes to 5-star hotels, Thailand has a splendid array of excellent choices for accommodation.  The hotels have tremendously sumptuous amenities, and cater to guests of all ages.  There is a fantastic sense of hospitality here that runs deep through the generations, and it’s apparent in the lodgings, where the comfort and rejuvenation of the guests are the number one priority.  With a magnificent sense of design, and a graciousness that could only exist in Thailand, our hotels will be an experience to remember.

Thailand is an extremely interesting country, not only for its history and its mix of cultures and traditions, but also for its myths and legends.  Some of the most fascinating legends here concern Thailand’s elephants, which have great religious significance in both Buddhist and Hindu spiritual systems, but also as a physical presence.  Thailand ‘s citizens and visitors here understand how important they are.  For some, especially in cities close to elephant populations, they are sometimes considered a nuisance.  There are only a few thousand elephants here, and many of them are domesticated, having been used in construction and timber industries.  Their owners, looking for money to help make a living, and also to pay for their diet of grass, which is an expectedly large amount, will bring them into the cities to do tricks for tourists.  There are programs at work to put microchips in Thailand’s elephants, to track how often they enter the cities, and fine their owners if it is excessive.

There are elephant activists, of course, and there are many who stand up for the rights of elephants, because it is a national symbol of Thailand.  When pandas were born at Chiang Mai zoo in Bangkok recently, there was shift in popularity from the elephant to the panda in the national imagination.  This was so marked, that some of the keepers at Ayutthaya’s Elephant Kraal, a conservatory for elephants, decided to paint five of their elephants with black and white watercolor paint, so they would look like enormous pandas.  It was a rather brilliant publicity stunt to turn the public’s attention back to these animals, and to raise awareness of their position in the culture, as well as their tenuous position in the world.

Related posts:

1. Mountain Biking in Phuket
2. Resourceful Birds of Thailand

Tags: Ayutthaya, Elephants, five star hotels, Thailand

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