The Elephant Story 005: Trade Recycling

Jun 12, 2015 | 0 comments

The Elephant Story series reports our activities in Thailand which will focus on elephants, products, polo and places. Stay tuned for more videos soon! See Full Description

AUCTION ITEMS: Gumbo and Strings Benefit Concert 07-03-2015

Jun 04, 2015 | 0 comments

AUCTION ITEMS

Gumbo and Strings Benefit Concert

07-03-2015 - 6:00 pm

TICKETS $50.00! On Sale at The Elephant Story!

Call or Come by!! - 723 High Street, Comfort, Texas - (830) 995-3133

Some of items that will be auctioned off are featured below. More items will be available the evening of the event. People interested in bidding on the items but not able to make the event can pre-register with The Elephant Story to participate in the auction Live via telephone. Call 830-995-3133 or email: info@the-elephant-story.com Bangkok Luxury Hotels The Peninsula Bangkok 2 night stay for two with Breakfast in Deluxe Suite At The Peninsula Bangkok, Peninsula luxury is met with sophisticated Thai charm for the ultimate cultural experience, from the hotel’s iconic Peninsula Green Tuk...

An American Artist Breathes Life into the Silks Of Laos and Cambodia

Jun 03, 2015 | 0 comments

Whereas Jim Thompson, an American spy, resuscitated the Thai silk industry, Carol Cassidy, brought high fashion design to the silk industry of Laos and Cambodia. Carol arrived in Laos in 1989 as a textile expert with the United Nations Development Program in Laos. One year later, she formed Lao Textiles, designed her own looms for hand woven silks and began integrating traditional Lao motifs into more modern designs. Even though Laos was much different when Carol settled in Vientiane than it was when the author was there twenty years before, it was any place but an established commercial place of...

Ban Ta Klang - The Beginning (The Elephant Story/GTAEF Learning Project)

May 26, 2015 | 0 comments

Our first report has come in from Tim, a full time English Teacher that The Elephant Story, in collaboration with The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF) through The Learning Link, are sponsoring for Ban Ta Klang school - helping the next generation of mahouts have more power over their destiny. GTAEF in conjunction with The Elephant Story set up a program to teach English and Fiscal responsibility to the Children of Ban Ta Klang School. Ban Ta Klang is a village in Surin province where a large number of mahouts, their families and their elephants either live or come from (including most of the mahouts at...

Asian Elephant Anatomy

May 21, 2015 | 0 comments

Further to our commentary on elephant tusks, we thought we would share a few other aspects of the anatomy of Asian elephants. To first put everything in context, they have a lifespan of some seventy years, can weigh up to 6,000 pounds and can attain a height of ten feet at the shoulders. By way of reference, we have a couple of relatively young elephants that happen to be wearing elephant polo saddles designed to provide a modest level of security in keeping their riders on top. Going from front to rear, the elephant trunk - having 60,000 muscles...

Elephants and Ivory

May 11, 2015 | 0 comments

It is most difficult to comprehend that anyone would kill an elephant to poach the ivory for purely decorative purposes. That is particularly the case as elephants are the closest animal group in terms of intelligence and empathy to the Hominidae family, composed of gorillas, chimps and humans. Historically, ivory was harvested for such special purposes as billiard balls, piano keys and decorative carvings. Synthetics have replaced ivory for pure functional usage whereas new wealth in China and Vietnam has spurred an even greater demand as a blatant, garish display of prosperity. Recently, Bill Fitzhugh, Archeologist and Director of the...

Thai Amulets

May 05, 2015 | 0 comments

Back in the exciting 60's in Laos, most of the foreigners working there wore a lot of 24 carat gold jewelry. The more flamboyant ones preferred the Chinese four seasons bracelet which seemed a bit odd to me for a country that only had three seasons - hot, less hot and wet hot. The concept was, if one's aircraft went down in bad territory, you could buy your way down the mountains with a bit of gold. I never quite understood that concept either as, if the bad guys saw you had some gold, why not just take it all...

The Thai Language (ภาษาไทย)

Apr 30, 2015 | 0 comments

If you happen to walk past a typical Thai kindergarten class you will hear what sounds like a cacophony of little birds singing. In actual fact, it is the children chanting their “koh kays”, the 44 consonants in the Thai alphabet. The Thai written language is a syllabic alphabet with roots in Sanskrit, Pali or Khmer origin and, according to tradition, was created in 1283 by King Ramkhamhaeng. Thai is a tonal language with five tones. The tone of a syllable is determined by a combination of the class of the consonant, the type of syllable, the tone marker and...

The Elephant Story 004: Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

Apr 24, 2015 | 0 comments

The Elephant Story series reports our activities in Thailand which will focus on elephants, products, polo and places. Stay tuned for more videos soon! See Full Description

The Elephant Story Elephant Polo Tournament In Moo Baan Chang, Ban Ta Klang, Surin, Thailand

Apr 22, 2015 | 0 comments

Since elephant polo was introduced to Thailand by the Thai Elephant Polo Association in 2001, and came under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King of Thailand as the King’s Cup, it has grown in scope and scale to become a major annual social event. However, we thought we would go to the elephants this year and have a much smaller tournament in the elephants’ hometown rather than the big city of Bangkok. Accordingly, The Elephant Story will host a tournament in Moo Baan Chang, June 24 and June 25 to mark the fifteenth year anniversary of elephant polo...

The Elephant Story 003: Interview with Pepsi

Apr 17, 2015 | 0 comments

The Elephant Story series reports our activities in Thailand which will focus on elephants, products, polo and places. Stay tuned for more videos soon! See Full Description

Moo Baan Chang - Heart of Elephant Culture

Apr 15, 2015 | 0 comments

Everywhere we go in Thailand, from the north to the south and back to Bangkok we encounter elephants and mahouts from Moo Baan Chang (the elephant village) Ban Ta Klang, Surin.At the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament last year in Bangkok, the elephant village mahout elders pictured below and some thirty elephants came from Moo Baan Chang. I guess it goes without saying that the taller guy is not a mahout though may qualify as an elder. Recently, we had a group from The Learning Link and The Elephant Story in Moo Baan Chang to organize the first native English...

No. 1 Most Expensive Coffee Comes From Elephant's No. 2

Apr 11, 2015 | 0 comments

August 20, 2014 5:48 PM ETMichael Sullivan / NPR All Things Considered / The Salt I s#&% you not: The world's most expensive coffee is now being produced in Thailand's Golden Triangle, a region better known for another high-priced, if illegal, export: opium.Canadian entrepreneur Blake Dinkin, 44, is betting his life savings that he can turn his idea into, well, gold. Here's the catch: His Black Ivory Coffee is made by passing coffee beans through the not insubstantial stomachs of elephants and then picking the beans out of, well, yeah, that.It's similar to Kopi Luwak, the civet coffee that was...

Protecting elephants, welcoming tourists

Apr 11, 2015 | 0 comments

The second video of a series by Nikkei Asian Review's Gwen Robinson looks at the Anatara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort's efforts to balance the financial and ethical demands of rescuing elephants, helping their caretakers, and welcoming tourists in northern Thailand. (featuring Ed Story, founder of The Elephant Story and John Roberts, Director of Elephants, Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF)

The Elephant Story 002: Artisan's in Silom Village

Apr 10, 2015 | 0 comments

The Elephant Story series reports our activities in Thailand which will focus on elephants, products, polo and places. Stay tuned for more videos soon! See Full Description

The Mei Tai Baby Carrier

Apr 06, 2015 | 0 comments

We have talked a lot about Hmong fighters in Laos during the Vietnam War era and their historical involvement in growing opium poppy. However, on a much lighter note, Hmong women are gifted textile artisans. The most prized creation of Hmong women and means to establish them in the Hmong community is the Mei Tai Baby Carrier. The Mei Tai Baby Carrier is designed to carry an infant on a person's back or chest. Mei Tai's have a long history, dating back hundreds of years. They originated in China with the name meaning "to carry on the shoulders with a...

The Elephant Story 001: An Introduction to The Elephant Story

Apr 03, 2015 | 0 comments

Founder, Ed Story introduces you to The Elephant Story in the first video report of our activities in Thailand which will focus on elephants, products, polo and places. Stay tuned for more coverage in the future. See Full Description

Elephant Polo: Preservation or Commercialism? (Video: Nikkei Asian Review)

Apr 01, 2015 | 0 comments

The Nikkei Asian Review's Gwen Robinson meets the people who organize elephant polo matches at a sanctuary in northern Thailand, where the sport has become one of the best ways to promote conservation. (featuring Ed Story, founder of The Elephant Story and John Roberts, Director of Elephants, Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF)

Laos Aircraft in the Sixties

Apr 01, 2015 | 0 comments

I know everyone is asking what does this blog have to do with the elephants. Actually, it has a lot to do with elephant conservation in that our previous blog on the Hall of Opium referencing Air America was very well received by many outside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. Therefore, I will continue to write similar blogs until we sell some of our Vietnam Era Hmong memorial jackets or an order for the entire inventory comes out of Langley, Virginia. In 1969, I chose to fly from Vientiane, Laos to the airstrip outside of Luang Prabang to have an...

The Hall of Opium in the Golden Triangle

Mar 25, 2015 | 0 comments

During our recent weekend in the Golden Triangle, the Nikkei film crew asked if they could film the Hall of Opium museum, adjacent to the location where they filmed elephant conservation and elephant polo footage. It was very clear that was not possible for a host of reasons. However, we did sneak a picture of the exterior of the museum and having visited it in the past can attest that the museum is quite interesting and well worth a visit. During the sixties and early seventies, the Golden Triangle was the heart of the opium trade for much of the...