Lucky day

Chiang Mai, Thailand

We wanted to do something extra special, as it was Ari’s golden birthday (a recognition I understand to be a mostly American thing). Thailand fit right into our itinerary, so we paired our elephant experience with Ari’s birthday and it was just as memorable as we hoped.

The elephants were even more massive and beautiful up close than I expected. They had a puppy energy; flapping their ears with delight, like wagging tails. They maintain their heft by eating 200 lbs of food each day in bananas, rice, grass, and sugar cane — a nearly protein-free diet! — which means they are almost constantly eating. Their trunks have 1500 muscles and are as dextrous as fingers, sorting only the most scrumptious bits of sugar cane off the ground.

Less than a month ago at the elephant reserve a baby elephant was born! (Interestingly, they said they couldn’t see yet if it was a male or female…?) What great fortune to play with a baby elephant, a more energetic, miniature, even more fall-in-lovable version of the big ones.

What I didn’t know until chatting with our tour guide, is nine is a lucky number in Thailand. In Thai, “nine” sounds like the words for “moving forward,” “rice,” and “let’s go eat.” At 9:09 on 9-09-09 the whole country stood to sing the national anthem. On New Year’s Day, it’s popular to go 9-temple hopping for good luck. The license plate number 9999 sold for 11 million Thai baht (over $300k USD).

We came to Thailand for the elephants, yet we didn’t know just how auspicious his 9th birthday on January 9th, in Thailand would be. The name of the new baby elephant? Lucky.

Still, even if you get to hang with elephants in their place, celebrating your 9th birthday without your pals is missing something. When asked, Ari rated the elephant birthday and his last year’s birthday at the trampoline park with 8 of his friends as tied for first place. I think he’s a pretty lucky kid.