King's Cup Elephant Polo Match 2010

We have been talking about going to the yearly elephant polo matches at the "Golden Triangle" on the Mekong River for the last few years.

Although there is a lot of smoke in the air we decided to go today with our friend Peter. We left Mae Sai around 7:30. The smoke was so thick we could hardly see the sun.

We traveled on our motorbike to the turn off of route 1290 from route 1 and met Peter at the Home Mart. Home Mart is a builder supply store like Home Depot or Lowes in America.

The sign said Chiang Saen is 37 kilometers.

Yes, that is the sun through the smoke.

We decided to stop and see the land that Daeng bought as an investment about five years ago. It is just about 500 meters north of route 1290 maybe 15 minutes out of Mae Sai.

The road was in poor condition and very dusty as they were changing this two lane road to a four lane highway.

We traveled to the "Big Buddha" at the "Golden Triangle" where we had breakfast.

After we ate we headed back across the road from the "Hall of Opium Museum" to the "Anantara Golden Triangle Resort".

The attendant at the gate told us to park our motorbikes over in the parking area as the Elephant Polo Patch was just a five minute walk.

As we came over the little knoll we could see the Elephant Polo Patch with the Mekong River in the back ground. The river was extremely low as this area of the world is in a drought.

We could hear the excited voice of the announcer as they were already started with the morning polo matches.

We found some nice comfortable canvas chairs, in the shaded covering and were offered cold bottles of water.

We could feel the excitement of the group as they cheered for the polo teams. Most of the audience were British, we think.

Peter, our friend, commented on the accents as he is from Australia.

They also had cheer leaders to cheer on the polo players and to help keep the audience interested.

Now, elephant polo is a little slow but fun to watch as these big animals run back and forth up and down the field with the polo players and Mahouts trying to hit this little ball, about the size of a softball and the polo mallets with handles over six foot long.

There were many teams that competed against each other. I was cheering for the "IBM Spice Girls" but they lost.

They were very good natured and were laughing during the photo shoot after their match.

Time for lunch!

And some Thai music and dancing during lunch.

These polo matches started about ten years ago by a couple of guys that were having a few drinks and thought it would be fun to play polo on elephants. That idea developed into a elephant polo circuit that plays in Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

To read more of the history and general rules just CLICK HERE.

Here is the complete schedule for the 2010 King's Cup Elephant Polo Matches.