Their ship arrived at the southern Thai resort island of Phuket after a 40-hour voyage, to be greeted by a group of campaigners who had been pressing the government to rescue them.

Private donations helped bring the elephants home

The activists held welcoming banners, draped the beasts with garlands of marigolds and fed them bananas and other fruits.

The elephants were then shuffled onto trucks for the long haul to their home in the province of Surin in northeastern Thailand.

Thailand originally sent six elephants and 12 mahouts (trainers) to the Indonesian island of Sumatra in October 1997 on a 10-year contract paying a monthly wage of 10,000 baht (US$277).

They were employed to help locals train and handle wild elephants from the Indonesian forests, but the deal turned sour after it became clear the Indonesian company employing them could no longer afford to pay.

Patrick Walker in Bangkok tells of the elephants' plight

When the economic crisis bit in Indonesia, the mahouts had to return to Thailand, but left their charges behind because of lack of money. Indonesian officials said their government was too broke to pay for the elephants' transport home.

One of the animals then died, prompting Thai animal rights activists to campaign hard for their return. A Thai shipping company finally agreed to let the elephants pack their trunks and bring them home.