The last wild fling is over (in the afterglow of polo)

By John Roberts 10 April 2008 01:31:00

There's a strange guilt like feeling around the place, in my bones and in the dusty air, a slight nag at the conscience as I sit here, drink coffee, and type - hard to put a finger on but, if we track it down, I think it is the lack of nagging need to finish this one job, get into the car, and get on with the next, for the first time in two months I don't have somewhere else to urgently be.

    Polo is over, the players have gone back to their normal (but not quite average) lives the playing elephants all passed the final inspection back onto the trucks, going back to their other lives rested, slightly fitter, slightly fatter, vitamined up and de-wormed.

    About 2.7 million baht - 25% of all money accumulated for the tournament, forget profits and losses, 25% OF THE TOTAL MONIES AMASSED - has gone, or will go, direct to the elephants, roughly evenly split between looking after the playing elephants to keep them during the event and the rest to be effectively spent on projects for the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, probably in the form of a per diem and diesel fund to run the ambulance donated with last year's money.

    So the elephant camps return normal, thirty elephants between Four Seasons, Anantara and the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and we go back to housekeeping, I promise I'll update the website to let you know who the new guys are and where their funding's from, the charge for extra land is in an advanced stage and we'll be working on a nice new home for our charges in a local village, the silk project is running but needs to be written up, this blog, I promise, will begin to tick over again.

    But then, of course, it is nearly Songkran and Songkran means splashing and fun, so as 'after polo' was our refrain for the past two months perhaps 'after Songkran' will become our new excuse - but I'll try to keep you up to date.

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