The Thailand elephant story

[billvon 3,131]

So there we were in Thailand . . .

The story starts during the bus ride out to Korat, a long 6 hour affair with lots of traffic, stops and boredom. Dan O'Brien and Liz were watching a movie. Barb and Jennifer were asleep. Mark was looking out the window. I was talking to Brenda about birthdays.

"Yeah, my birthday is coming up next week. Who knows? Maybe we'll get the record on my birthday," she said.

Mark Tennyson's ears perked up. "Really? My birthday is coming up next week too. It's on the same day as Melanie's."

"You don't say," I said. With that many birthdays coming up, there was no way we could not do something.

When we got to Korat, I talked to Scott (my roommate) who was way ahead of me.

"I knew Melanie's was coming up," he said. "We could do all three at the same time."

"We should get that Irish bar for the party," I suggested.

"We should get an elephant!" said Scott.

"An elephant? How?"

"Oh, I'll ask around." Now, elephants are officially endangered or something in Thailand, so I figured there might be some problems picking up an elephant at the local street market. But Scott is nothing if not resourceful. He went down to the tuk-tuk (little taxi) stand and asked for an elephant. They just looked at him like he was crazy. So he made a "trunk" with his arm and waved it around while making elephant noises, and sure enough one of them said "Ah! Ailofunt!" and told him to get in the tuk-tuk. They careened around Korat in search of the elephant. This involved much stopping and asking of people on the street, some of whom had just seen an elephant go by. After about half an hour they tracked down the elephant lumbering through town with a bunch of boxes on his back. Scott got cellphone numbers and went back to the hotel.

Ironically, earlier that night a bunch of us had gone out to dinner and almost run into an elephant. Tuk-tuks are designed for Thai people, who tend to be short, and thus I couldn't see much. My first warning of trouble came when the driver slammed on the brake (I think only the front wheel has a brake) and I saw us stop just before four big grey columns, which did not resolve into an elephant until we drove around it.

The next day we were discussing the party with Barbara.

"I got an elephant," said Scott proudly.

"You got an elephant? No way!" said Barb, properly impressed.

"Too bad we couldn't put a big sign on it that said 'happy birthday' or something," someone mentioned.

"We could paint it!" said Scott.

"You can't paint an elephant!" exclaimed Barb, who was shocked at the very thought. "The poor thing . . ."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll paint it for us."

Well, there were problems with the cellphone number, and that necessitated some more careening around Korat in dangerous vehicles trying to find an elephant. Finally everything was set. Scott and I went over to the Irish pub a few hours beforehand to put up the banner and talk to the waitresses about the party; they were excited about it. We had a momentary problem when we tried to figure out how to put the banner over their hand-made wooden bar without getting duct tape goo all over the fine wood, but a waiter went and got a bunch of big honking nails and just nailed it up.

The plan was to have Melanie have dinner at a Japanese place, then ride the elephant to the Irish bar (just down the street.) Melanie started dinner just before the elephant showed up, so the timing was pretty good. The elephant arrived with a blinking light tied on its tail to make it street legal, and immediately headed for the bushes outside the bar and started to eat them. The driver yelled and poked the elephant with a tool that looked like an icepick and he eventually stopped. Sure enough, someone had written "hanny birddy day my melanie" or something like that on the elephant in big chalk letters. Brenda got the first ride, and then the people at the bar started lining up for elephant rides.

Melanie and John ended up being at dinner for a long time. There was a short comedy in the parking lot of the restaraunt as we tried to keep the elephand nearby, out of traffic, but also not visible. Finally Mel came out. She had had a bit of Sake, and it took a second for the elephant to register. "Oh my god! You guys got me an elephant! I love elephants! Uh - can I touch him?" She did, and the elephant reached out his trunk to see if she was carrying any sugar cane, which the elephant owner had been selling to people to feed it. She yelped and almost dropped her (large) bottle of Sake.

After she patted the elephant for a bit she got on the small seat above the elephant, mounted like a saddle. She remembered the bottle of sake, and used it like a baton to lead the group as we left. The procession then started from the restaraunt to the bar with the elephant in the lead. When we got there, Melanie dismounted and we took a few hundred pictures of her and John next to the elephant.

That night was Wednesday, I think, and as the next day was Thursday (the second to last day we had for the record) I didn't stay up too late. But from the reports the next day the party was pretty epic. There were a lot of very slow people on Thursday when we showed up at the airport.

[billvon 3,131]

One final picture:

[ACMESkydiver 0]

That is SOOOOO incredible!!!! An elephant!! OMG can you get better than that?? What a birthday!

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[diablopilot 2]

Sure, how about a giraffe?

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[jumper03 0]

I was doing fine until the part about the tail light...
ROFL!!!

Scars remind us that the past is real

[piisfish 140]

excellent. Thanks for sharing the story and the pics.

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[craichead 0]

Thai folks are always more than happy to help, and we love to have a good time, too!

AndyMan is a pretty lucky bastard, if I do say so myself.

_Pm

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"Scared of love, love and aeroplanes...falling out, I said takes no brains." -- Andy Partridge (XTC)

[Deuce 1]

OK. That is the current definition of epic.

[riddler 0]

I shall name him "Stampy"
Thanks for sharing, Bill. Good laughs. Oh, and from the "writing" pic - it looks like your elephant has an oil leak.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Guest]

That is truly outrageous!

What a great story!

Thanks for the post!

mh

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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[slug 1]

Damn

A world record and a elephant.

Elephants with tail lights and cell phones What's next

Pink Elephants and a new world record.
R.I.P.

[jumpwally 0]

as usual,,,only skydivers.....

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[McDuck 0]

Dude, now I'm sorry I didn't hock my soul to go on that boogie. My sweetheart and I will HAVE to go next year. Dang!

Kevin - Sonic Beef #5 - OrFun #28
"I never take myself too seriously, 'cuz everybody know fat birds don't fly." - FLC
Online communities: proof that people never mature much past high school.

[billvon 3,131]

>Dude, now I'm sorry I didn't hock my soul to go on that boogie.

Well, on the minus side, there was only the one elephant, and I think we ended up jumping only about half the time we hoped to due to weather. We spent an awful lot of days just sitting on the ground. Amy ended up not going because she didn't want to just sit on the ground while we were jumping, and that was probably a good call on her part, because the alpha team/local jumpers got very few chances to jump after we started going for the record.

Getting the record at the end of all that makes up for a lot though.

[wingnut 0]

Quote

Sure, how about a giraffe

sangiro still owes us that bbq......

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"i have no reader's digest version"