The Thai family is making repeated visits from Jagannath

AFP, Released Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 1:29 p.m.

For a Thai family, the elephant noise in their kitchen is not a complete shock: they are used to repeated visits.

“He’s back to cook,” Kittychai Buttson teasingly wrote in the title of a Facebook video he shot over the weekend, showing an elephant sticking its trunk through his kitchen.

Driven by a nocturnal nostalgia, the gigantic beast stuck its head into Kittichai Butson’s kitchen early Sunday morning and found food using its trunk.

At one point, he takes a plastic bag full of liquid, looks at it briefly, and then puts it in his mouth before cutting the video.

Kittichai Bhootsan and his wife often bathe as wild elephants roam the jungle, on the edge of a lake, near a national park in western Thailand.

He is not disturbed by the imposing mammal, and the frequent visitor wanders around the houses of his village, from where he leaves and eats before returning to the forest.

He said the elephant destroyed their kitchen wall in May, creating an outdoor kitchen concept reminiscent of a drive-in window.

Kittichai Bootson explained that the general rule for dealing with unwanted visitors is not to feed them.

“When he doesn’t get food, he leaves on his own,” he told AFP. “I’m used to him coming, so I don’t care.”

Wild elephants are common in Thailand’s national parks and surrounding areas, with farmers occasionally reporting incidents of starving herds eating their fruit and corn crops.