Watching elephants raze a restaurant

We heard a crash, the tinkle of sprinkled glass and screams.

So we sprinted ahead on the rainforest path - marked with signs reading: "beware of wild beasts" - to see what was causing the commotion.

We arrived, chests heaving, on the observation platform in the Wild Elephant Valley in the remote rainforests of Yunnan province's Xishuangbanna to see more than 20 pachyderms ruining a restaurant.

The massive mammals were using their trunks like wrecking balls and their tusks like bulldozers to bash through the walls of the tourist eatery at the platform's terminus. They stomped through the deck and whacked tables into the river below. A baby whapped small stools, tumbling them over the ravine and into the waterway.

"They're after the fruit!" another spectator howled.

The creatures rolled the coolers and fridges out of the building. Their doors flopped open and pineapples cascaded out. The creatures began gobbling them with a cacophony of crunches and slurps. These massive mammals weren't angry - just very hungry and very, very big.

When the elephants lumbered to the river to wash down their meals, staffers bolted over the bridge and hopped through the holes punched into the sides of the building to tow armfuls of valuables to safety. Soon, the bridge was loaded with cash registers, computers and speakers.

Workers gave free drinks and boiled corn they'd rescued to everyone watching.

We sipped and snacked as we watched the elephants do the same for hours until twilight inked out their plodding silhouettes.

Their crashes, splashes and trumpets punctuated the darkness.

We'd booked the tree houses atop the platform as part of our 2009 Spring Festival holiday travels through Yunnan. Our group included my wife, aunt, brother, father and mother, who had a fractured leg.

Mom's cast came into play the following day, when the elephants stood between the cable car drop-off and our tree houses.

We'd awoken to find the pachyderms had departed and teams of workers were clearing debris, including a photo booth's splinters.