India, April 23 -- As the stars slowly reveal themselves, we hear the elephants chewing some 20 feet away. Even in the dark, I can make out their shapes: 53-year-old Kummoon is the smaller one despite being two decades older than Ja Thong. The two females stand huddled together - or as close as they can get to it - under a tree. When we arrived a few hours ago, the pair dexterously used their trunks to grasp long grasses and crunch sugar cane stalks. That dinner buffet is long gone, so they are likely munching on some low branches now, we deduce. Consuming 300 pounds of vegetation daily requires around-the-clock eating.

Exterior view of the bubble domes at Anantara Golden Triangle | Image credit: Anantara Golden Triangle

My family of fo...