Every late January for the past 60 years, a few thousand riders from throughout Europe descend  in the Bavarian Forest in the dead of winter for three days of laughter, roast pig, and many, many drinks. Everyone takes a different route, and getting there through the sleet and snow is half the fun.

Most arrive the on the first night, roaring in on bikes heavy with chainsaws, stoves, tents and so much beer. It is invariably bitterly cold, but no one seems to mind. For the Elefantentreffen participants, the snow and the cold, the smell of smoke and roasted pork are the essential requirements for happiness.

I wanted to portray the riders as “movie heroes,” which certainly comes across in their strong poses and big smiles. I was fascinated by the people, who represent all walks of life, from farmers and students to engineers and doctors. The beauty of this rally it’s that to all the people no matter who you are, how you are and what you do. Everybody is equal as long as they get there. Being yourself for three days, beyond the every day life and remove the mask you wear, to show a part of what you want to be really. At least a little.


Mae Rim is a rural area not far from Chiang Mai (Thailand), with many curvy roads traversing lush tropical greenery. Mr. Tum, a man of 55, shaved bald but with a patch of hair the back and small ancient tattoos in the body, manages a "Snake Farm" . In 20 years of daily shows he lost a finger of his hand and damaged the others irremediably after suffering cobra bites. His collaborator mr Feng have many scars on the arms.
There is a ticket office and with few money you are granted access, where you can sit on the tribune and wait for the show. A speaker with microphone and music background announces the start of the "games". The show is simple, Mr Tum and his collaborator stay in a ring, interacting or annoying the snakes and dodging the bites. There are some intense moments like the "kiss of the cobra" or when the situation seems out of control. After the fight, the fangs and the venom of the cobras are shown to the spectators, to demostrate that there are no fictions or deceptions and that the animals have not been mutilated or rendered harmless.
Tum makes shows togheter his collaborators many times a day for people (sometimes two or three), interacting with cobras, pythons, banded krait and other reptiles. Most of these animals are caught in the jungle or bought from the local markets.
It's a way to attract tourists in an area that is sometimes too far from typical tourist locations in the country.
The snakes (especially cobras) is very important in the local culture, as they are a symbol between good and evil.
A fair number of people still attend these kinds of shows despite some in western culture who refuse to attend them or question their legitimacy. An American once spent six months with Mr. Tum to learn Tum’s craft.
Therein lies a controversial relationship between global tourism and survival of small communities that put on such shows as an economic resource.



An unimotorcycle is the unholy combination of a motorcycle and a sled. It has one wheel, a few runners, and an absurdly powerful engine that propels the entire contraption across a frozen lake at breakneck speeds. Brakes? Pfft. They're an afterthought at best. All of which is to say, you have to be crazy to ride one.

Unimotorcyle racing started in the 1980s in Florida, a fact few will find surprising. The "sport" quickly spread to Europe and beyond. A Russian unimotocyclist named Dmitry Gorbunov attended the Elefantentreffen biker rally in Germany in 2002, and thought it wasn't nutty enough. So two years later, he decided to go racing on ice.
Location: the snow-blanketed town of Togliatti, Russia, where the temperature never climbed above -10 degrees Fahrenheit. The event drew about 1,000 spectators and 35 unimoto riders, many of whom came from hundreds of miles away.
Races began each day around 11 am and continued through the afternoon. Riders astride homemade machines seemingly inspired by Mad Max vied to post the fastest times. Many of them rode contraptions adapted from Honda and Yamaha motorcycles, with runners crafted from shovels and other stuff you'd find in the garage. The more eclectic machines ran on electricity and even steam, while at least one featured four propellers. One guy even cobbled together something that looks a lot like a pulse jet.
No matter what made them go, it was loud. “Like a lion that roars when you cut its balls". He saw a few unimotos scuttle out of control across the ice or catch fire after their motors overheated, but no one seemed too bothered. The fastest racer gets a trophy and an enormous hunting knife, the words "Snow Dogs" engraved into a handle shaped like a dog's head.
When the day's racing is done, the real party begins. People eat, drink, and sing karaoke until the wee hours. “A passionate expression of the joy of life that motors and vodka bring.”
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.” William Faulkner

99 it's the number of nights that I have spent in clubs and discotheques.
Every winter for the past 60 years, a few thousand riders from throughout Europe descend on Germany in the dead of winter for three days of laughter, roast pig, and many, many drinks.
It’s held in late January in the Bavarian Forest. Everyone takes a different route, and getting there through the sleet and snow is half the fun.
Most arrive the on the first night, roaring in on bikes heavy with chainsaws, stoves, tents and so much beer. It is invariably bitterly cold, but no one seems to mind. For the Elefantentreffen participants, the snow and the cold, the smell of smoke and roasted pork are the essential requirements for happiness.
I was fascinated by the people, who represent all walks of life, from farmers and students to engineers and doctors. The beauty of this rally it’s that to all the people no matter who you are, how you are and what you do. Everybody is equal as long as they get there. Being yourself for three days, beyond the life of every day and remove the mask you wear, to show a part of what you want to be really. At least a little.
2024 © Alessandro D’Angelo
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