Weather was wet in Hoi An, Vietnam for the last two days and people cycled around in wide plastic capes or holding umbrellas over their heads on the bikes. Now here in Ko Samui the rain has followed us.

Tropical downpours - absolutely torrential - fell all Wednesday night. The sea is far too rough for the planned snorkelling trip.
Yesterday the town street at Chaweng was under water, with sandbags trying to protect the shops, a pump engine, determined motorbike drivers braving the floods, and men shouting and enjoying the drama of it all.

The rain stopped in the afternoon so we went on a 'tourist' expedition to the biggest waterfull, in full muddy spate, where I satisfied a recently held desire to ride an elephant.
This you can do for half an hour through a mountain river bed.
Because of the rain, the river was fast flowing, very muddy and full, and the elephants trod carefully.
The one we were riding, called Sua, with the cheeky mahout, felt under the water with her trunk.
She was a baby, only 10 years old.
The bigger male, further along the path, had an extremely long appendage, wich the mahout gleefully indicated with much commentary in Thai - I guess of a somewhat lewd nature!
Delicacy prevents me, dear reader, from going into exact details but this elephant seemed to be very well endowed.
Our mahout was also mightily entertained when our lady elephant relived herself in the river, he called the offering after a local beer - Singha!
At the end of the ride I took the opportunity to sit on Sua's neck while the mahout took a photo. She was very warm and it was comfortable.
Her head was covered with what reminded me of a long crew-cut, all the black hairs standing up evenly spaced, but cut off neatly at an exect level of about 2 inches, very fashionable!
I felt rather alarmed when she moved forward, because the elephant has no harness of course. She is controlled by a stick with a metal point on one side, and the mahout had that - he was taking the photograph.