Arrived Ban Ta Klang elephant village, Surin

At the Surin town bus station, Songthaews leave for Ban Ta Klang every hour. Trip costs 50 Bhat and takes 1,5-2 hours depending on how many stops are made at the markets.

Cheap, but not the most comfortable way of travel, during longer distances. Luggage is placed by your feet, reducing available space for the legs.

From the highway, theres another 19 km to Ban Ta Klang. When passing a junkyard for cars, I saw the first elephant, and started to wonder for which work it was used there. (right from the tree)

The closer you approach the village, the more elephants you see on both sides of the road, chained outside the owners house or on a rice field. This lowland region is highly dominated by endless kilometers of rice fields.

Righ behind the Songthaew you can see an elephant beside the road.

 I left Surin 15.00 and arrived Ban Ta Klang at 17.00, and noticed civilization has made yet another step in the village; an ATM machine.

Ban Ta Klang has an impressing number of elephants, and may futurevise become an excellent tourist place.

Presently, the setup is more made for guest coming in buses and spending some hour, or a day, but with more guesthouses, it may provide a place to spend several day, or even a week, for elephant interested people. 

Last time the guesthouse was fully booked, and I stayed inside the elephant village in homestay, in the Mahouts house.









This time I will stay at Apples mothers guesthouse, opposite the elephant village, the green house in the middle of the picture.Most visitirs go here for lunch, or gather in the evenings over a beer.








 Today, one old elephant belonging to a nearby temple died. It was already cremated when I arrived, but I went there and took some pictures when it was buried, a km outside the village, where a statue was raised, telling about the past when elephants were cought in Cambodia. In the forest beside the statue, an excavator had already buried the elephant.