Southeast Asia

Didn’t wake up until 9:30 this morning and by the time Dee and I got ready and went out for breakfast it was time to meet with the British girls for the elephant trek we had booked a few days earlier. The designated meeting time was 12:30, when the girls still hadn’t shown up at 1:00 we went and knocked on their door only to find them asleep, very much hung-over from last nights escapades. They rearranged to do the trek the tomorrow so it was just Dee and I and 2 guys from NY, James and Pete who claimed to be 26 but then again I’m 16………

At the elephant camp we spent a bit of time getting ready to know the elephants and feeding them bamboo. Our elephant was named Ot and she was 27 years old, we asked for her specifically because Zoe and Antony had her a couple of days earlier and she apparently loves the water. Climbing onto the elephants was scary, they pick up their leg which you stand on and then pull yourself up by their ears, I was so worried about hurting her. First we took a 1 hour ride through the jungle which was heaps of fun because we were riding the elephants bareback and would slide forward and back as the elephant went up and down the hills. At one point Dee dropped her jumper and Ot picked it up for her and gave it back, it was so cute.

Leaving the jungle we went down to the river which was really beautiful and where the fun really began. The guide would ask you if you wanted and shower and then Ot would drop to the side and throw you into the water. There were numerous variations on the method of throwing which included her dunking her head or lying down on her side but always ended up with Dee and I in the water in hysterics. It was really quite gross because you could see the occasional elephant dung floating past in the water but it was such good fun. The guide would say something to Ot and she would spray us with water from her trunk. This continued for at least half an hour with us being thrown off in every which way and climbing back up her trunk to get on. She would lift you up with her trunk over her head and then you scrambled onto her back. I have no idea how, but our guide managed to stay completely dry even when Ot was almost entirely submerged at some points whilst playing around in the water. Afterwards we rode the elephants back to the farm, the guide was suppose to be on our elephant, but Ot refused to come close enough to the rivers edge to let him on and flicked river mud at him instead.

[i will be adding more photos of us playing with the elephants in the river once i have uploaded them]

Back at the guesthouse we immediately took showers because the smell of elephant was overpowering and it was rancid. Went out for Indian for dinner which was ok, but not great. I’m going to stick to the Thai food here because you just cant beat it. After dinner we went down to the bakery and grabbed coffee and cake with the 3 British girls and chatted for a couple of hours. The girls have decided that they’re not going to hang around Pai for xmas, instead they’re going to head down to Koh Chang in the south despite of the crappy weather. Which means that tomorrow night will be their last night.

Dee and I went out with Brendan, Zoe, Antony, James and Pete for a bit but we drank very little. We started at Ting Tongs which is a really great shack/outdoor bar and then we moved on to Bebops for the live music.

After Bebops the NY boys decided that we had to see their 3000B (Aus$100) a night hotel room. It was nice, had cable TV etc and was a whole lot cleaner than where Dee and I are staying but then again 3000B for me equates to 2 weeks accommodation so to me its not worth the money, but it was nice to hang out there. James, Pete and Brendan got stoned; it was an ok night but for Dee and I watching other people do drugs is not particularly thrilling. We didn’t hang around long and left and went to bed at about 2:30am.

Tags: Thailand

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2005 at 1:17 am and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.