OF ALL the illegal activities that animate the streets of Bangkok – the vendors who hawk pirated DVDs and fake watches, the brothels that call themselves saunas – one stands out more than others.
Elephants are not supposed to saunter down the city's streets as they do almost every night. For at least two decades the giant grey beasts have plodded through this giant grey city, stopping off at red-light districts and tourist areas where t
heir handlers peddle elephant snacks of sugar cane and bananas to passers-by.
Occasionally the elephants knock off the wing mirrors from cars or stumble into gutters and cut themselves on sharp objects.
The police shrug, politicians periodically order crackdowns and animal lovers despair.
The creation of a Stray Elephant Task Force in 2006 did not keep the elephants off city streets. Nor did the team of undercover elephant enforcers who periodically cruise through Bangkok on motorcycles scouting for the beasts.
"To be honest, nobody wants to do this job, nobody wants to deal with the elephants," said Prayote Promsuwon, who is in charge of the Stray Elephant Task Force, which was formed after an elephant handler, fleeing the police, raced his elephant the wrong way down a large Bangkok boulevard, causing traffic chaos.
The police shy away from detaining the elephants' handlers, also known as mahouts, because the officers fear they will not be able to control the animals on their own.
"This is a dangerous job," Prayote said. "An angry elephant can destroy cars and make trouble, and then we have responsibility for the damage."
The government says there are 3,837 domesticated elephants in Thailand today. Only a tiny fraction come into Bangkok, usually no more than half a dozen each evening, but they are hard to miss. Many Thais say they serve as a daily reminder of the inequalities in Thailand, the gap between provincial poverty and urban wealth.
Mahouts bring their elephants into the city for the same reasons that the sons and daughters of rice farmers try their luck as waiters, golf caddies and massage therapists in Bangkok: they need the money.
But to critics, elephants in the city highlight the persistent impunity of lawbreakers in Thailand, a country with no shortage of rules but gaping lapses in enforcement. Thailand has eight distinct laws that can be used to arrest mahouts who bring elephants into the city, rules that cover moving violations, wildlife protection, public health and urban tidiness.
"We've been fined many times," said Nattawut Inthong, a 24-year-old mahout who travels around Bangkok with his elephant Gra-po.
Nattawut treats the fine of 300 baht, about £5, like a business expense: he pays it and moves on. Most evenings he parades Gra-po through the Nana red-light district, a warren of go-go bars in Bangkok's bustling Sukhumvit neighbourhood. The elephant adds to the carnival-like atmosphere created by thumping music, hawkers dressed in hill-tribe costumes and bar girls twirling around poles in bathing suits.
Before motor vehicles took over, elephants were the taxis of the rich and the workhorses of rural Thailand, especially prized for their help in clearing thick swathes of jungle. It was not until the late 1980s, when the government banned logging to save the nation's dwindling forests, that hundreds of elephants found themselves unemployed.
Some elephants were given jobs in the tourism industry, carrying jungle trekkers and amusing visitors with their ability to paint or even play in an "elephant orchestra". For others, the unemployment line led to Bangkok.
Eight years ago, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun lamented that when Thais saw elephants walking down the streets in Bangkok, "we are not only sorry for the elephant but we're also ashamed of ourselves.
"The elephant was a symbol of honour, of dignity and leadership, but today it has become the symbol of the failures and injustices of Thailand's development."
