A Day with the Elephant - Beauty and the Beast

A Day with the Elephant -  Beauty and the Beast

Photos by Dr Abe V Rotor

First, you have to befriend the elephant's master.

Get to know a baby elephant.

Then get to know an adult one.

Before you climb and sit on the saddle and feel like a princess.

Now you can go places - with the beast's master.

Riding an elephant makes two faces. Actually, three.

Young elephant needs company, or vice versa,
under the watchful eye of the mother.

"If you tame me, you are responsible to me. "
(From The Little Prince) That's the key to friendship.

Befriend the parent, too. The family circle, in fact.

Hurray! Freedom to both of you.
Freedom is the prize of friendship.

Now you can go places - to the home of the beast, the jungle.

And to your own - the complex human habitation.

At the end, friendship is sealed with a real kiss.
And the memory lives on - and shared with others -
with a touch of fairy tale in a real world.

Acknowledgment: Safari World, Ayutthaya the Ancient City, Thailand.