Amazing Thailand is Going Green ... who's responsible?

Thailand is going green. Don’t worry it’s got nothing to do with radioactive fallout from Japan or some mysterious tropical ailment. Rather, it’s the concerted sustainable tourism direction the industry is now taking throughout Amazing Thailand ...

At the recent Thailand Travel Mart Plus 2011 forum, the theme was ‘Caring for the Earth’ and eco travel was pushed to the top of the agenda.

In his keynote address, Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Suraphon Svetasreni addressed the topic:

“The need to reconcile the economic and ecological impact of travel and tourism is critical to the Balanced Strategy that we are pursuing as part of of our tourism development policies. There is no doubt that so many millions of foreign and domestic tourists lead to high emissions of greenhouse gases and other forms of environmental impact. Hence it is the responsibility of the entire industry to help mitigate this impact.”

TAT has long been championing this direction, by introducing the 7 Greens Concept in 2008, with an aim of promoting environmentally friendly tourism, plus introducing the Green Leaf Certification system, something along the lines of a hotel star-rating system for green travel.

Northern Thailand in particular offers an abundance of ecologically pristine areas, especially Mae Hong Son province, arguably one of the most beautiful parts of Thailand. Its major centre, Pai, (which I’ve blogged about before here) celebrates its 100^th anniversary this year. If you love mountain trekking, river rafting, etc, this is the place the head for.

For more information on Thailand Goes Green, see www.tourismthailand.org/greet

Art masterpieces from a Thailand elephant camp

If you thought artists have huge egos, how big would an elephant's ego be if he was a famous painter?

Jumbo sized would be the short answer.

I saw this painting done in 10 minutes with my own eyes

On a recent visit to Mae Sa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai I watched the elephant show, enjoying the antics and the fun and games (see previous blog) but I was most transfixed by the sight of four elephants deep in studied concentration, producing amazing paintings.

Ok, some of them might have scored a 'Well done!' at kindergarten level, but others would have turned real artists a nice vermilion green with envy, jing jing.


One of the local staff, Mui, gave me a bit of background which confirmed my worst fears about primadonna pachyderms. "Elephants have many, many emotions," he said. "Some are a bit naughty." He believes dolphins are the most intelligent animal, followed by elephants. "Emotion like a dog."

In 2000 they started a painting program here for the youngest of their 72 elephants, starting at two years old. They train for 3-6 months before their precocious talents are foisted on the fawning world. It can take a month alone to get them to handle a brush properly.

"They train every day ... we have school. Practice about 1-2 hours per day."

Once they can handle the brush, they learn the order of the strokes by heart. Some elephants have a naturally distinctive style ... some do dots, some do lines, and others, well, it's  just abstract daaaahling.

Mae Sa once brought a Chinese painter out from China (well, where do you think he was going to come from?) to teach Chinese painting styles. They instructed the mahouts, who in tern translated this to their mammoth charges, and -- voila! -- more Chinese styles were churned out.

Talk about selling out! Mercenary behaviour!!!

The paintings produced each day typically sell for something like 2-6,000 baht. But the most expensive painting by an elephant here went for 1,500,000 baht (that's US$50,000). Entitled Cold Wind, Swirling Mist the masterpiece took six hours to complete.

Still, that's good money. In fact, with my long nose, I was thinking of throwing in this travel writing game, joining the elephant circus and picking up the brushes.

Just don't pat me on the head and feed me bananas, because I've got a big ego.


See more amazing Thailand elephant paintings here: www.gallerymaesa.com