Thai elephants await tourists post-floods

A huge workforce in Thailand is back on the job: the elephants famous for carrying tourists through the country's ancient capital.

Authorities reopened a major elephant park in Ayutthaya this week, hoping to show tourists the country is beginning to return to normal following historic floods.

The park is famous for offering tourists elephant rides through the ancient temple ruins that dot the city, a UNESCO World Heritage site 50 miles north of Bangkok. Experts fear that at least half of the more than 200 waterlogged monasteries and other monuments in the one-time royal capital have been damaged by Thailand's worst floods in more than half a century.

Shops in the city are reopening, but the streets have been largely empty of tourists. -- AP