Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle

The management at Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle have agreed to join our baby rescue scheme with a guest donation and sponsorship programme of their own.

Weather and fitness permitting, don't be surprised to be visited by the young entourage at any time during your stay whilst they are out for their daily exercise.

All these were bought by a 100% donation by Minor International and will perform easy and suitable work - under the supervision of Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation - these elephants all support themselves (& their new mahouts) at the Four Seasons Tented Camp in the Golden Triangle.  They all live in the 160 acres of forest next to the Golden Triangle itself and have an idyllic life with professional care and endless supplies of bananas and sugar cane.  Minor International companies pay all fodder, veterinary and incidental bills for these elephants as well as the wages and benefits for their mahouts. 

Pang Puang Phet

A beautiful 30-something, Pang Puang Phet, literally walked into our lives when her owners bought her to the local village.  She was living in the back of a 6 wheeled truck and making a living by walking the streets of any local town in the North and selling small amounts of sugar cane to be fed back to her.

Her owners loved her and cried when they left her with us.  Walking the streets is not a good living for an elephant - she ate for three days straight when she first came, unable to believe in a never ending supply of sugarcane - but they are expensive to keep and her owners couldn't think of any other way to keep her in food and them in money .

She is now fat and happy and is one of our camp stars, used especially for photo-shoots but also for mahout training.

Pang Kam Mool

When all the other Surin elephants made their seasonal trip to earn a living in the tourist camps and on the streets of the big cities her owners kept Pang Kam Mool behind.  Although they told us she was 'almost forty' they knew her true age and were reluctant to send her out to do hard and stressful work - we think she is closer to sixty than forty.

She is settling in well in the camp (though it took her two days to discover sugar cane and bananas as food - preferring the bamboo and mimosa she had been surviving on) and is ideally suited to our relaxed regime.  A slow moving but obedient training elephant and maybe one slow trek through the forest every day.

Though we initially had to learn the Khmer commands used in Surin she is quickly picking up the Northern Thai elephant language.

Plai Boun Liang

Plai Boun Liang has spent all of his 40 years in the logging industry but, it seems, during the last few years he came into possession of an unscrupulous owner who not only worked him too hard but forcibly removed his tusks at the root - leaving him with big infections which must be cleaned every day.

 Through it all he has retained a gentle nature and responds well to human interaction.

Within a month of being with us, in a camp of endless high energy food and female elephant contact (probably for the first time ever) he went into musth.  But he's out now and ready to restart his romance with Lawann, one of our elephants from the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. 

Pang Yuki

Before finding a settled home with us it seems the Pang Yuki had travelled more than your average human of her years; perhaps seen more life too.

Born in Surin province she was shipped to Japan immediately on separation from her mother, so fast it seems that she wasn’t named until arrival - Yuki is Japanese for snow.  Snow took its toll on the young elephant and she was returned to Thailand within a very few months as she reacted very badly to the cold.

For the next three years she worked as a bar girl in Pattaya’s tourist strip, performing nightly in their cabaret until she got too big and had to find other employment ­ the fate of many a bar girl we hear.

Bounma’s name, meaning to bring merit, has finally paid off ­ though it has taken rather a long time.  She is the only elephant we know of that has been taken begging onto the streets in order to rescue her.

We don’t know much about her early years but we pick up her story in her early twenties when she was owned by a logging company and working in the forests of the North. The problem was, it seems, that she never took to logging and in return she was savagely treated ­ she still bears the scars of a beaten head, pink skin around the neck and a badly broken ear.

She was spotted by an itinerant Surin mahout who decided to buy her and take her onto the road in order to save her.  Life after the savage treatment has been walking the streets of Thai cities, tourist spots and beaches.

She was in Pattaya when we found her and bought her to the stable life of our camp where she has fitted in fine and, though keeping herself to herself, is a great trainer.

Pang Tongkam

We don’t know anything about this elephant!  Her name means Golden, we’re told she was born in Phrae province where she was probably a logger.

I met her under a full moon in Surin and fell in love with whatever it is you see in an elephant’s face ­ to top it she let me drive her with absolutely no introduction (which may not indicate good breeding but is useful in our industry).

She had been working the streets but had been bought back to Surin for sale and we’re lucky to have her!

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