...But is it Art?

Yesterday Matt and I went to the elephant conservation park. I was really excited about going because I have been reading about and studying the painting elephants of Thailand for about 2 years now. But once we got there it was kinda weird.

The camp was supposed to provide "room and board" for former timber elephants now out of work, and the painting and other stuff was to help pay for the expense of keeping them. I dunno if this was really the case or if they were just exploiting the animals for the tourist dollars. We also went on a jungle ride on an elephant. The rider was a bit of a sadist and seemed to enjoy beating the elephant with this wooden/metal tool or stabbing his ear with the metal hook. By the time the ride was done our elephant had a bloody ear :-(

The painting was interesting to watch, but what I had been reading about was more like the elephants get to paint however they wanted and use whatever colors they wanted. This was more like they taught the elephant a form and then he just performed it. Not as exciting as I was hoping.

It was a bit of a disappointing experience, but overall I am glad that I went.

We also joined a group of other volunteers going to the Chiang Mai Zoo. There's not much to report there - we walked uphill most of the time, in the rain, and never really saw any animals. I think they lure people into this animal-less park, the people inevitably get lost with all of the windy uphill paths and they have to pay a zoo truck 20 baht to bring them to the exit. I wanted to go to see how they house the penguins (penguins in Thailand?) - we found out. They no longer have any.

I probably won't have a chance to post until Shanghai (I leave on Sunday)!