Surin Elephant Round-up 2008

[lampard10]

My condolences go out to the poor ferang who was trampled to death yesterday at The Surin Elephant Buffet. Me & 'er indoors' were sitting on one of the Chang when they started to get very aggitated. Bit scary!

It must be remembered that these cute Dumbo's are still wild animals and can get spooked by various stupid actions.

Dave (still here BTW)

It now appears that the injured ferang lady 'just' had broken bones and did not die. Sorry for the mis-information. From the back of my Chang I saw someone giving CPR and stupidly relied on Thai gossip.

Dave

Wrong again.........it was a Thai lady. Wife of the writer and travel agent Tom Bishop from BKK. She suffered a broken leg, broken arm, cuts & bruises. I guess now this threads started on this line, by wednesday we will have a full Elephant stampede with 500 crushed. By the way where is Elizabeth Taylor?.

[johnsurin]

Wrong again.........it was a Thai lady. Wife of the writer and travel agent Tom Bishop from BKK. She suffered a broken leg, broken arm, cuts & bruises.

So, do you think the elephant festival will get a bad write up now???

John.....

[lampard10]

Wrong again.........it was a Thai lady. Wife of the writer and travel agent Tom Bishop from BKK. She suffered a broken leg, broken arm, cuts & bruises.

So, do you think the elephant festival will get a bad write up now???

John.....

No I don't think so. The BKK Post reported the incident...................Surin elephant festival, blah,blah blah..........................Oh and by the way four peole were seriously injured, as an after thought.

We had a guy in today that said the woman had died according to the paper. I strongly disputed the fact as the guy in question who's wife it was is a friend of mine. He told me his wife had told him it was in today's paper. When we confronted her , she said. " Well it says in the paper she didn't die, but a guy at the sontam stall told me she had"

[bergen]

No I don't think so. The BKK Post reported the incident...................Surin elephant festival, blah,blah blah..........................Oh and by the way four peole were seriously injured, as an after thought.

I feel sorry for the injured people............unfortunately accidents do happen some times.

Hope to be there again next year...........because I think the festival is well worth a visit.

[Dave the Dude]

It was really good this year and the translator 'gizmo's' are now free. I think they take an ID card/passport as security. Very good idea.

The sound/music show accompanying the action was proffesional and Im sure the whole Show and numbers of Elephants seemed 'Bigger' too.

Wish I'd brought a cushion to sit on though. 3 hours sitting on concrete equates to a Numb Bum.

Dave

[robee]

The festivals a complete waste of time. A market where you can buy plastic things and a load of elephants most of which should be somewhere else.

-- Zoot

I don't agree. The show is great. Worth watching it at least one time. A few nice pictures can be found here for instance: http://www.east-asian-road.com/pub/enphot2a.php

Yes,there's some great pics there....................I was thinking of using some, but our sites are linked anyway.

It's not my website, but I've been there already. I know the owners but their guesthouse is already full during the festival.

just returned from first time at festival, can anyone confirm that 7 people were killed crushed by elepahnts?

[lukey1979]

I have come back from the Sunday showing today, the show was Ok (great if you love elephants) exact replica of last years events. No running water in the bogs, misses got verbally abused by one of the handlers for not giving him some money, got my foot run over in the stadium grounds by some nugget on a motor bike, my 2 year old was nearly trampled to death by an elephant taxi outside. Then i hear some poor bugger got trampled at the buffet. Went to the buffet last year it was sad to witness that most of the elephants handlers could'nt give a rats arse if the elephants ate or not, they were just interested in getting some money.

To see the round up once is Ok. I won't be going again. I would imagine that once upon a time it was a wonderous spectacle.

My opinion of it now is that it is utter Dogs toffee.

[robee]

Grrrr..... I'm subscribed to this topic but am not getting updates!

So, what exactly do you need to know?

Dave

did you get the info?

[Nomad97]

My next door neigbour, a policeman, told me that four people had been injured during the elephants' breakfast party on the Friday morning. I was at the breakfast party, with family and relatives, including my three and a half year old daughter. I kept a close watch on my daughter and we stayed well behind the barriers. We had a very enjoyable time and were close enough to the elephants to get the real atmosphere of the event. However, the road on the other side of the barriers was awash with elephants and people alike - all rather congested and an accident waiting to happen. I saw one rather large elephant take an instant dislike and charged into another elephant. The sound of the disturbance was quite frightening. The mahouts did a good job but for a couple of seconds the elephants were definitely out of control. I am surprised that only four people were injured - it could easily have been more. As to those parents that took young children beyond the barrier - I think they displayed a complete lack of common sense.

[Yorkie]

If anyone is interested, I believe these are the first pictures posted on the net of the 2008 round-up. I could be wrong!

2008 Surin Elephant Round-Up

Cheers

Y

[lampard10]

Well, whether you like it or not, think it's wonderful or a complete waste of time, this years Round-up surpassed all expectations. Saturdays show was completely sold out, with queues of people waiting for tickets. If I had sold some of the tickets that had been ordered through me, I could have made a lot as a ticket tout, but that is not my way, so I held on to the tickets to the bitter end. In the end I had seven left over from people who ordered and didn't pick them up. So if anyone wants tickets for this years round-up............................................

Only 7 Robee? Surely you can do better than that.

On the brighter side, the Governers office bought Tom Bishops tickets back from me, as of course he could not use them, so, if you are reading this Tom, I have your refund.

We at the F.C. had a good festival as well, cooking over 500 meals for the weekend. My girls were great. We had a limited menu on, with 14 of our best sellers, and no person had to wait longer than about 40 minutes for his/her meal. The average was around 25 mins. We opened at 05.00 for the early train, and closed at around midnight, so once a year is quite enough. We had 137 people booked in to various Hotels, and only a few didn't turn up. One guy who I will not name, (Fernando) booked into more than one Hotel, to make sure he had a room. He even had the cheek to phone me up to deliver his tickets to the Hotel he finally settled for, which wasn't one of mine. So, a rest...............................no wait. Xmas in four weeks