We rode elephants!!!!

This was one thing at the top of my list to do while in Thailand...ride an elephant. Ever since I saw a photo of my Auntie Chris looking petrified while sitting on an elephant's knee and seeing Jono's parents' picture of them riding on top of an elephant, I have wanted to do it too. We booked into a 1-day tour which included not only an elephant ride but also a ox-cart ride, bamboo rafting, buffet lunch and a quick visit to a small village. More on those later, let's stick to one topic at a time!!!!

After picking up a van's worth of people, we headed to the "jungle" and on arrival at the elephant park we caught the elephants having their bath in the river. Very cute. Next was an elephant performance. Different elephants performed different tricks including kicking a soccer ball, shooting hoops, giving a Thai massage, stacking logs, playing instruments (tambourine and harmonica), swinging a hoop and painting. Though all the tricks were entertaining we did stop for a moment and ponder animal rights and how these animals are treated out of hours, especially when we saw their instructors use sticks. At the end of the show the elephants came up close and personal with us all, looking for food! I got to sit on one elephant bare back. He was young because he still had long bristly hair on the tip of his head. WE are told elephants are like men, the older they get the less hair they have on their head!!!

Soon we lined up, bought some bananas and Jono and I were sitting in a wooden seat on the back of an elephant. It was really cool but uncomfortable. As we were being jostled back and forward with every step, we were also worried that we were slipping down the left side of the elephant so Jono had to keep moving in his seat to even us up! The elephant (and instructor sitting on his head) took us on a muddy track through the jungle, up and down hills, through the river twice and to a small village community. We also met quite a few other groups on elephants as we went along. As we hopped off Jono rewarded the elephant for it's hard work and fed it 2 bunches of bananas (it would have been 3 but one lot fell in the first river and the elephant couldn't find them!).