PHATARAWADEE PHATARANAWIK
THE NATION
UPCOUNTRY ELEPHANTS banana sales on Bangkok streets are likely to slump in deeemder as sumptuously decorated fibre-glass elephants muscle into the scene life size models from an internationally acclaimed exhibition called "the elephant parade.
There will be royal elephants in silver and gold headdresses a beast wearing a sarong and an elephant-headed tuk tuk - 88 sculptures in all. The show's been to 20 cities around the world since 2007 but is only now getting to elephant-giddy thailind where the idea actually originated.
During our first trip in Thailand in 2006 my dad and I visited the friends of the asian Elephant hospital in Lam-pang and saw Moshe the baby elephant that lost a leg stepping on a land-mine when she was seven months old says mike spits a dutchman who with father Marc put the parade together. Moshe was the first elephant ever to receive a prosthetic-limb.