Mark Odegard

Elephants in Bangkok

March 11, 2008 on 9:33 am | In Bangkok, Photos | No Comments

Brothers

My vote is in, I vote for a true Zazen 3+ day retreat at the SE tip of Minnesota at the Zen Retreat Center. It would be a inner challenge for us all, and a unique spiritual place for the Woollies to explore.

Tonight Eliz and I went to the Foreign Correspondence Club for a lecture on Elephants. There is a problem in the city of Bangkok with mahouts and their elephants. This city is not a place to raise an elephant; many traffic accidents, begging for food, the wrong kind of work and food. There is an organization that raises money, and buys the elephants off the streets, sometimes has to rent them, and moves them to the Golden Triangle in Northern Thailand, where Burma and Cambodia all meet. There they have a large area for these domesticated elephants to work. Once a year there is an Elephant polo match, sanctioned by the King of Thailand, sponsored by IBM, it’s all a bit strange. This isn’t conservation, they are not saving wild elephants, but domesticated city elephants, and they love to play polo, they understand the game, and chase the ball and help set up the shot. Humans seem so unusual sometimes.

Long ago, Chinese ship came to Thailand, with tons of pottery in the hold has balllast. Often they arrived broken, this is a large temple complex made entirely of broken plates. It’s beautiful.
 
Mario