Not an Elephant Activist

Between all the beach and water play, we did squeeze in a few other activities in Phuket. 

We went to see a show called Fantasea.  It is a big production with elephants, dancing, and acrobatics. 

Overall it was…entertaining…it had plenty of cheesy and over-the-top bits in it.  Some parts kind of reminded me of the crazy Indian soap operas played on Asian television.  Please tell me you know what I’m talking about: floating people and laser eyes… need I say more?  

 

Absolutely no cameras were allowed into the theater, so we didn’t get any pictures of the show.  However, on the way into the theater there were plenty of photo ops.  The whole thing was a major tourist trap with lots of cheap carnival games and gift shops. 

  

As well as a little bit of entertainment along the way.

 

We had plenty of time to take a few pictures as the place insists you come early or they’ll give your tickets away.  We figured out it was simply their way of getting people in there to spend more money before the show! 

  

These are our friends’ kids from Hong Kong who happened to be vacationing in Phuket at the same time as us.  We kept trying to align our schedules, but this was the only night it worked out. 

 

The Fantasea show centered around elephants.  Apparently they are a sacred animal to the Thai?  The below building was the Elephant Theater where the show was held.

Before the show started, Cody told me he read some reviews online about how having several elephants performing tricks in the show is controversial.  Some people feel the elephants are not being treated properly by making them perform on stage?  I am no animal rights activist; in fact, I don’t spend much time at all thinking about animals, so I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it.  Then the show began and I sat pondering whether having elephants perform in the show was a bad thing or not.  Nothing in the show appeared to harm the animals, so I concluded that as long as the elephants were well taken care of in between shows, I didn’t see a problem with it.  Also, elephants are very smart animals; I must admit it was pretty cool to see them do circus tricks.

Then the next day we went on an elephant ride and it solidified my conclusion, but for an entirely different reason (which I’ll get to in a minute). 

Here we are riding in the back of the pick up truck that took us to the elephant farm. 

 

Watching the little monkey as we waited our turn to ride.

 

We have been on elephant rides twice before.  Though Cody and I didn’t really feel the need to do it again, we knew it would be fun for Jade (and she might actually be old enough to remember it this time) and we wanted to see Ridge’s reaction. 

I think this video is fun because it shows our view from atop the elephant.  I love seeing the elephant hair and hearing its ears flap. 

That’s right, it wasn’t long before Ridge fell right to sleep. 

We joked that the elephant felt like a rocking chair, so it rocked him into a slumber.

I’m sure the bouncing ride helped, but it was simply well past nap time.

So back to the “are the elephants being treated bad” issue.  Let me show you a little of what we saw on our elephant ride.  This is a person’s house.  Likely the people running the elephant farm. 

Here is another. 

And these are the water pools we saw on our ride to and from the elephant farm.  We asked our guide what they were and he told us they are the people’s water—for bathing, cooking, drinking, etc.  The pools fill up with rain water.  That means no rain, no water--which apparently has happened before.

I am of the opinion animals are on the earth for man’s use and benefit.  They are here to provide us with food and for our use to make our lives easier (oxen pulling carts, etc.).  Therefore, I now believe using elephants as a means of income—especially when that income provides a very humble living that you may not have otherwise—is absolutely fine by me.  If that’s what you have to do to feed your family, so be it.  By the way, our elephant driver is living on a different island (one that has elephants) than his family in order to make money for them.  I’m sorry, but every single time I will vote for a human’s life over an animal’s.

 

Now to finish off the rest of our Thailand vacation…a few more pictures.

A fruit stand.

Tuk tuk ride.

 

Thai “pancakes.” Our favorites were banana with nutella and mango with caramel. Oh, so yummy!!

 

The morning of check out, we made the most of it by spending a few hours at the beach then one at the pool before showering, packing, and heading to the airport.

 

As we flew away from Thailand, we got to see one last sunset.