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Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - (see all news for this day)
the elephant ride in thailand - 06:35 AM
(filed under 'general')
quite a while ago, i mentioned going for an elephant ride while we were in thailand. i said i'd tell more about it at some later stage, so here i am, finally doing that. this is going to be another long entry, so continue reading if you're up for it.
it was fun, but really quite scary. you sit right up on top of the elephant in a wooden seat. it's kind of like a bench seat, but without the legs .. it should have been built with seat belts, because being atop a rather large elephant that is going up & down sometimes rather steep slopes, it was really difficult to hold on.
we'd armed ourselves with drinks because it was kind of warm & the ride would go for one hour, so we thought we might get thirsty, but we'll know for next time that it's better to just leave our hands for hanging on for dear life! only ten or so minutes into the ride, i had to make the decision between falling off or being a terrible litterbug. it went against everything in me to throw my can into the beautiful bush, but there was no other place for me to put it. it was either throw it into the undergrowth or fall off the elephant!
i was the lucky one, because i only had to look after myself. shroom had smiley to hang onto as well. just as well he's a lot stronger than i am.
the views on the trip to the waterfall were quite lovely. on occasion, the man who was riding on the elephant's head & who was steering him with his toes, would let the elephant stop to pull out some grass to eat. i found it amazing how the elephant's trunk was so flexible & could already be holding a large 'handful' of grass, yet still go back to pull out more. i pointed out to smiley what he was doing, although he wasn't as amazed as me. when you get to ride on elephant when you're only three, i guess maybe you don't think it's quite so out of the ordinary to see one up so close. *chuckle*
fortunately, that morning i'd tranferred the neck strap of my video camera (which is way too heavy to hang from your neck for a long time) onto my normal digital still camera, so i could put that around my neck & leave my hands free to hang onto the seat thing on the elephant's back. we still had shroom's water (i was naughty & had bought a coke instead, which i was more happy to discard than water which is actually thirst quenching) which i was holding between my knees. what with trying desperately to stay on, a lot of the water got squeezed out & ended up going down my legs, but at least it wasn't sticky coke.
after a relatively short time clinging onto the back of the elephant i was kind of wishing we could turn back, but i'm glad the guy leading him couldn't speak english, because when i finally got used to it, i enjoyed the view & loved being able to have our picture taken in the waterfall. the elephant got some time to take a drink & cool down in the waterfall. i wondered for a few moments if we were going to end up under the falling water, but he just stood around in the water.
the trip to the waterfall was a round trip, so the way back wasn't as long & took a very different (& much less steep) path. i wondered, while i was up there, how the elephant felt about being ridden around. he didn't seem bored or unhappy & i'm sure the weight didn't bother him, because he was certainly big enough to handle more than just our relatively light weight. we saw a different elephant at doi suthep later on in our thailand trip which seemed to be unhappy. he was standing there rocking back & forth. he looked bored & very unhappy. the one we were riding on wasn't doing any of that, so i guess he found it interesting enough to actually want to do it. the man leading him seemed to be kind to him, didn't hit him or anything or speak harshly to him, so i hope that's a good indication that the elephants there were treated well.
i took some pics while we were in thailand, so if you'd like to see them, start here & keep using the 'next' thumbnail links. there are seventeen pics from thailand.
Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos of your time in Thailand. I loved them :o)
Ah, those pictures were from Thailand.. They were great pictures!
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great pics. wonder if the sausage might have been a might spicy....thus smiley's look/expression.