LIFE> Epicure
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LIFE> Epicure
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Crashing the party
By Erik Nilsson (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-06 09:34
 We heard a smash and the tinkling of spraying glass as the window shattered. The wild Asiatic elephants lumbering through the restaurant were using their trunks like wrecking balls, lashing tables and chairs. Furniture tumbled into the burbling river below. "They're after the fruit!" an onlooker howled from an observation bridge in the rainforest of Wild Elephant Valley, in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. These creatures weren't angry - just very hungry and very, very big.
The 20 elephants continued plundering the thatched-roofed wooden hutch for hours. They stomped holes through the planked decking, crumpled a nearby photo booth and shoved over a refrigerator full of pineapples. The fruit cascaded out the cooler's door and the herd began devouring them with noisy gusto. It was a jaw-dropping sight. Whenever the animals wandered down to the river to drink, staffers would sprint into the restaurant through a hole in the side of the building. Arms wrapped around computers, speakers and fruit, they darted back to the safety of the bridge, heaping the restaurant's contents all the way. My family, along with a handful of Chinese who had also rented out the tree houses lining the 10-m-high bridge, lingered there long after nightfall inked out the elephants' plodding silhouettes. |
