The Elephant Story

PUTIN LEARNS FROM MISTAKES OF LYNDON JOHNSON AND BREZHNEV ERAS

Oct 28, 2022 | 0 comments

PUTIN LEARNS FROM MISTAKES OF LYNDON JOHNSON AND BREZHNEV ERAS In the summer of 1964, Lyndon Johnson spoke regarding the war in Vietnam – “We are not about to send American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.” That promise was short- lived and some 58,000 Americans lost their lives as a result. In 1979, Leonid Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan with the resultant loss of some 15,000 Russian lives. Neither leader had a look at the historical failures of other powers who attempted to invade those two countries. Some historians have argued that public anger over the...

The Environment of Mongolia — First the Russians Followed by Climate Change

Oct 20, 2022 | 0 comments

The Environment of Mongolia — First the Russians Followed by Climate Change For the most part, the Russians left Mongolia following the peaceful democratic revolution of 1990. A handful of Mongolian revolution leaders attended the 1992 Republican Presidential Convention in Houston. I came to know them as we were the only folks in the United States that had any commercial interest in Mongolia apart from tourism. Given my limited budget, I invited them to my house for homemade Mexican food and many margaritas and that was followed by a visit to a shopping mall. Shortly after that I found myself...

MODI HAS THE MOJO AT THE MOMENT

Oct 17, 2022 | 0 comments

MODI HAS THE MOJO AT THE MOMENT In the fall of 1970, I was granted a long home leave to Texas from my base in Japan. Unfortunately, I had just moved from Tokyo to Yokohama several days before and no one had notified the car hire service of my new address. As the only place I knew to get a taxi to the airport was the train station, I drove there, left the car with the keys in the ignition and made my way to the airport as a brief sabbatical awaited in Bangkok. I overstayed the allotted time in...

ALL IS NOT WELL IN THE PARTY OF ABE

Oct 10, 2022 | 0 comments

ALL IS NOT WELL IN THE PARTY OF ABE To be clear, we are talking about Shinzo Abe, former prime minister of Japan, and not honest Abe Lincoln though they both were victims of assassination. Over the years, the name Abe, pronounced Abé, has become synonymous with politics and government in Japan. The conservative Prime Minister Abe of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, LDP, was born into that arena as the grandson of a previous prime minister. As Japan’s longest serving prime minister, he had recently stepped down for health issues and was subsequently assassinated for reasons no one could...

A ROYAL ERA AND FRIENDSHIP COMES TO AN END

Oct 03, 2022 | 0 comments

A ROYAL ERA AND FRIENDSHIP COMES TO AN END For the past twenty-five years or so, we have spent approximately half of our time in the United Kingdom and Thailand. The time in Thailand may have been influenced by a longer passionate history there but both places became an integral part of making a living and enjoying life. The world is still in a mourning period for the loss of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 following her reign of over seventy-years. In October 2016, another well-known and revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died at the age of...

COURAGE AND THE THAI PASSION FOR FOOTBALL

Sep 26, 2022 | 0 comments

COURAGE AND THE THAI PASSION FOR FOOTBALL Four years ago, The Elephant Story published an article entitled The Wild Boars of Mae Sai Are Back Home. It covered the rescue of the twelve soccer/football team members and their coach from their life-threatening entrapment by rising flood waters in the Tham Luang cave in Mae Sai, Thailand. You will note in the image taken in the cave they are wearing football jerseys, which was their standard uniform and only clothing in their seventeen-day period of cave isolation. This summer, film maker Ron Howard released his Thirteen Lives documentary covering their ordeal...

GANJA FOR MEDITATION

Sep 19, 2022 | 0 comments

GANJA FOR MEDITATION Some fifty-five years ago a friend of mine and I discovered the effects of Thai Stick ganja in my small air-conditioned study in Bangkok. I am not at liberty to disclose my source, but it was not that difficult to find, and purchase weed there. My friend, Bob, and I liked it and appreciated the enhancements it made to the music of Jimi Hendrix. In fact, ganja was readily attainable in certain out-of-the-way places in Bangkok. On one occasion, we joined some Thai friends to go on a jungle wild boar hunting expedition hosted by the...

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

Sep 12, 2022 | 0 comments

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY Most of you will recall the famous novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by Le Carré which makes a point of the difficulty of determining the real professions of some people. A few weeks ago, I was doing my daily read of The Bangkok Post when up popped an article entitled Russian Arms Dealer Extradited from Thailand Unaware of US Swap. The basic bones of the article would be familiar to most people in the U.S. It reflected the alleged swap offer of the U.S. to exchange Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer imprisoned by the U.S.,...

NANCY PELOSI DOES THE TWO-STEP IN TAIWAN

Sep 05, 2022 | 0 comments

NANCY PELOSI DOES THE TWO-STEP IN TAIWAN There was much saber rattling by the Xi Jinping controlled mainland China crowd over the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. The Taiwanese have been at odds with the mainland for at least the past seventy years. Moreover, Xi Jinping is at odds with anyone who stands in the way of him being confirmed as “Emperor for Life” at the November meeting of the Communist Party Politburo. His most recent Covid-19 performance and the disastrous impact on the Chinese economy have raised some eyebrows at the Politburo. Therefore, the insult of...

TAMIL NADU LEADS THE WESTERN WORLD IN WASTE MANAGEMENT

Aug 29, 2022 | 0 comments

TAMIL NADU LEADS THE WESTERN WORLD IN WASTE MANAGEMENT Perhaps it is surprising to have two back-to-back stories set in South Asia though this one has a happy ending and represents good and most welcome news for our environment. In the early nineties, it was like stepping back in time to visit our office in Madras and go to the Madras Club for curry and a gin tonic after work. The club shown here was built in 1832 at the height of the British Raj days in India. Those days are gone but the club is still going strong though...

SRI LANKA JOINS THE LIST OF FORMER BRITISH COLONIES TO GO UPSIDE DOWN

Aug 22, 2022 | 0 comments

SRI LANKA JOINS THE LIST OF FORMER BRITISH COLONIES TO GO UPSIDE DOWN Some years ago, Joey and I took a most enjoyable tourist trip to Sri Lanka which is rich in Buddhist history along with kind of a sleepy atmosphere. The only chaotic moment was when we departed from Galle and tried to make our way through an airport terminal which was operating at a minimum of 300% of capacity and jammed with tourists and backpackers. Otherwise, it was a very special and spiritual place that reflected a deep history and commitment to Buddhism as this image reflects. That...

U.N. FORCES CAUGHT IN CONGO CHAOS

Aug 15, 2022 | 0 comments

U.N. FORCES CAUGHT IN CONGO CHAOS For many years, I have always spoken derisively of United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. The U.N. members could sleep easy by feeling that they had addressed the risks of conflicts in developing countries by supplying U.N. Peacekeepers. Other developing countries could bill out the cost of their locals that were rounded up to be peacekeepers while keeping the majority portion of what they billed to the U.N. The ill-trained and poorly compensated hapless peacekeepers had one primary objective and that was to stay alive rather than maintaining law and order. Simply stated, my experience in...

ONE MAN'S DISGUSTING SMELL IS ANOTHER MAN'S AMBROSIA

Aug 08, 2022 | 0 comments

ONE MAN'S DISGUSTING SMELL IS ANOTHER MAN'S AMBROSIA The durian fruit has that effect on most everyone. A dear friend of many years commented on a recent blog that closed with an image of a Vietnamese man transporting durian fruit on the back of his bicycle. She said she could smell the distinctive smell by just looking at the photograph. It turns out, The Bangkok Post recently published an article entitled Welcome to Durian Country which is, in fact, the remote area of Uttaradit’s Laplae district of Thailand where the most delicious varieties of the “King of Fruits” are the...

Ban Taklang - Home To Education, Elephants, and Buddhism

Aug 01, 2022 | 0 comments

Ban Taklang - Home To Education, Elephants, and Buddhism Maricel Ballon, one of our two English teachers in Ban Taklang, just sent me a photographic portrayal of life in the educational process in Ban Taklang, Thailand. The Elephant Story has had a presence there for many years to educate the youth of the village by providing English instruction and supporting veterinary care for some 300 elephants. The elephant culture has been intertwined in this village of maybe 1,000 residents for thousands of years though they are only one of three elements in that community. Together with John Roberts of The...

THE KING OF THE BOY SCOUTS

Jul 25, 2022 | 0 comments

THE KING OF THE BOY SCOUTS After over 50 years of close involvement in Thailand, including two years as a resident in the late sixties, much of the history and culture of Thailand becomes imbedded in your soul. From time to time, I have considered living there again but it is difficult to abandon my Texas roots. The first Thai offshore oil and gas exploration concession that I and a close Thai friend acquired thirty years ago, we put into a company named Thaitex. That name pretty much covered our roots on both sides as my Thai associate had lived...

TODAY'S VIETNAM IS A DIFFERENT PLACE

Jul 18, 2022 | 0 comments

TODAY'S VIETNAM IS A DIFFERENT PLACE I first went to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, some fifty years ago. In the early nineties, I returned to discover the undeveloped potential there and chose to be a participant in their future growth and prosperity. Initially, the perception of the outside world was that their path to economic growth would be the result of their natural resources. My perspective was oil and gas which worked out extremely well, as I just attended a massive party in Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate our milestone of having produced over 100 million barrels...

THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING

Jul 11, 2022 | 0 comments

THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING Back in the “Black and White Days” of 1966, I was recruited by the Far East subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey to ultimately work in Southeast Asia as part of the dead-in war effort there. It was a compelling argument to be your own person with no uniform requirements though there would be deniability of your presence if something went south. Before being shipped out, I was sent to New York for training where I became an expert on the marathon Paris Peace Talks to end the absurd Vietnam War. Another...

HONG KONG AND SHIANGHAI WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

Jul 05, 2022 | 0 comments

HONG KONG AND SHIANGHAI WILL NEVER BE THE SAME In 1968, I stopped in Hong Kong while in route to Southeast Asia to begin my lifelong adventure there. Since that time, both Hong Kong and Shanghai have changed dramatically for the worse in the past five to ten years or so. At that time, Hong Kong was an escape hatch from the war troubles of Southeast Asia to shop, stay at wonderful hotels and enjoy both western and Chinese food. In fact, I sent one of my people to Hong Kong to buy a duty-free tape recorder as a senior...

BACK TO SCHOOL IN BAN TA KLANG

Jun 27, 2022 | 0 comments

BACK TO SCHOOL IN BAN TA KLANG We have just received updates from our English language teachers in Ban Ta Klang, Thailand which is home to some three hundred elephants supported by The Elephant Story and The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation . Everything seems to be returning to normal there following the extended pandemic lockdown. The isolation of the village from the rest of Thailand likely lessened the Covid impact on these people. The students were excited to return to school as were our teachers, Maricell Ballon and Rachel Mae. There are a lot of smiles on the faces...

CAVIAR IS HEALTHY AND DOES NOT SUPPORT THE RUSSKIES

Jun 20, 2022 | 0 comments

CAVIAR IS HEALTHY AND DOES NOT SUPPORT THE RUSSKIES For some ten years I was a frequent flyer to Russia where I became a frequent consumer of Russian caviar. On an early trip there, following the collapse of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), we pulled up to the curbside drop off at the Sheremetyevo airport. We were getting out of the car as my Texas associate asked our Russian handler – was there anything we should not take out of the country – and she responded “caviar.” Quickly, the Russian baggage handler had my suitcase loaded with caviar in front...