TRAVELLERS TALES
Brief Encounter C. James Dale, Freelance journalist
CHIANG RAI, Thailand -- Ed Story’s elephant polo obsession almost cost him a foot, but here he is, sweating it out on the back of a two-tonne beast, swinging a long mallet in an attempt to whack a fist- sized ball into a goal on a field in northern Thailand.
“It’s addictive, that’s all I can say,” he tells me.
Ed’s been addicted to this unusual sport, popular in several countries, for five years. The Texas oilman makes frequent trips to Chiang Rai to stay at the Four Seasons Tented Camp and train for Thailand’s annual King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament.
“To say he’s into it is an understatement,” his wife, Joey Story, confides.
Ed’s a millionaire, someone who has just about everything he wants. The one thing he doesn’t have, though, is an elephant. So when he’s back home on his ranch outside San Antonio, he practices on a fake one he built, a safer upgrade from the first contraption he created.
“He retrofitted [a] car and cut his foot off when he did that,” explains Joey. “That was on top of a Suzuki we had outfitted with a seat. He hadn’t put his seatbelt on.
24 THEINSIDER It was raining and he fell in a field and hit a hard rock.”
Doctors reattached Ed’s foot, and after a long rehabilitation, he made his comeback. Elephant polo isn’t just a sporting challenge for him, it’s also a charity venture.
“We’ve raised about half-a-million dollars to take elephants off the streets of Bangkok and put ‘em up here,” Ed notes.
Thais once used these animals in forestry, but a 1989 ban on logging forced their trainers, or mahouts, to beg in Bangkok and elsewhere to cover costs. The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, funded by the Four Seasons and another luxury hotel, helps by employing the mahouts and renting their elephants. Now these gentle giants make a living lumbering through the jungle with five-star hotel guests on their backs. And playing the odd polo match.
“This is certainly a better habitat than sleeping under freeways and that sort of thing,” Ed argues. “So it’s more than just coming to do this.”
Then he smiles. “But this is fun.”
Image courtesy of Katie Van Camp
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