Thailand: Our Friend Jumbo (AKA Puck-Put)

One of the best parts — probably the best part of the trip (at least for Bob) — was meeting Jumbo, or Puck-Put, as Bob called him.

Jumbo is an eleven month-old elephant currently being raised and trained in Phuket. We were sitting at the pool on our first day at the Marriott and I see this young elephant walking by the area. He disappears from sight and returns in a few minutes to the pool area to the delight and amazement of myself, Bob and a number of the other guests. Some guests simply ignored him, which I found utterly baffling.

It turns out that Jumbo (or Puck-Put, as Bob preferred to call him) made daily appearances all around the resort. His mahout (or trainer) lives on the grounds with him and is, in all likelihood, preparing him for an adult life as part of the Phuket Fantasea show, or some other elephant-based entertainment, which are common in Thailand. The hotel, along with a few other high-end hotels in Phuket, provides room and board in return for daily interaction with guests. Given the option of starvation and perhaps begging on the streets with his mahout or appearing in an entertainment or educational entertainment for tourists, I suppose that being properly cared for in exchange for entertaining people is a superior option to starvation.

Jumbo is quite the character. Full of energy and happy to play with people, he did a few obligatory tricks, such as "playing" a harmonica and giving people high-fives with his trunk. Mostly, however, he simply interacted with people and his environment, bringing delight to those of us who spent time with him, or fed him, or gave him water. Although it may be somewhat common in Thailand to interact with elephants so closely, it's certainly not the case in other parts of the world. Young elephants are fiercely guarded by their mothers, and getting close to an eleven month-old elephant is impossible in places like southern Africa. Jumbo was abandoned by his mother at birth, so that may explain he ended up where he did.

Jumbo would also make trips to the ocean each day, and if you happened to be in the right place at the right time, you could take a swim in the ocean with him. He's highly energetic, and very playful, and is just beginning to learn how to bring people up on to his back. In the water, this translated in to rushing around from person to person, practically knocking them over in an attempt to get them on his back. I can't begin to describe how amazing and joyful it was to play with him, and to watch him play with Bob in the shallows of the ocean. He swam and dunked himself in the water, rolled in the sand, and went back for more. His mahout finally had to drag him out of the water and off to his other responsibilities (or maybe just a break from the people).

There are probably only a few hundred people in the world who can say that they've swam in the ocean with a young elephant. I'm glad that I'm one of them.