Road Signs

If I were telling you how to get to my factory from my apartment, I would say - get on the outer ring road expressway, go over the bridge, and then get off on the first exit after the 100 ft. tall 3-headed elephant.

The elephant is actually a museum. Here's another picture.

Here's a little background from the Thai-blogs website. Only in Thailand.

The biggest tourist attraction in Samut Prakan now is undoubtedly the Erawan Museum (Chang Erawan). This giant three-headed elephant is an incredible 29 metres high and 39 metres long. If you count the building it stands on, then the height is 43.6 metres. A small window in the belly of the elephant gives you some fine views of the surrounding area. They started work on the structure back in 1994 and it has only recently been completed. You can't fail to notice this elephant as you drive along Sukhumwit Road on your way to Samut Prakan. It is truly an amazing structure. In fact, I think it is probably the only museum in the world where the building itself is far more interesting than the artifacts that it houses.

The inspiration behind the Erawan Museum came from the late Khun Lek. This successful businessman became rich as the owner of a dealership for Mercedes Benz. Instead of squandering his money, he decided to take an active part in preserving past cultures and handicrafts for future generations. Khun Lek was the man behind two other inspiring projects which are the Ancient City and the Sanctuary of Truth. More about these later. The three-headed elephant is the mount for the Hindu God Indra. Actually, the elephant is supposed to have thirty-three heads but as this isn't easy for artists to duplicate it is often abbreviated to only three heads. One of the original clay models, that they made before building the elephant, showed the God Indra mounted up on top. But, I believe this proved to be too impractical. So, they just built the elephant.

During the construction, about 3 years ago, a rumour started spreading about a woman that had made a wish to the elephant that if he helped her win the lottery then she would have his baby. Well, a short while later she did in fact win over a million baht in the lottery. She also became pregnant. By the time the national newspapers came to hear of it she was already in hiding. Not sure if it is true or not. Probably just an urban legend. But, enough Thai people did believe and a shrine outside the walls of the park soon became packed with worshippers. Lottery sellers do good business here on the 1st and 16th of every month when the winning numbers are announced.

There is another story that Khun Lek built the elephant in this location on purpose to block the way for a proposed outer ring road. While it was still being built, I heard from one of the family members that they were planning on donating the elephant to the King. A bit like the villagers that ordained trees to stop the loggers cutting them down. However, the outer ring road is now being built just north of the elephant. The ironical fact is that the family home was pulled down instead to make room for the road!