Elephants!

When in Rome (or Thailand) ...

We added to the length of the day’s trip by visiting an elephant camp and riding an elephant. There was a platform from which you stepped onto the “chair”. Chair isn’t really the correct word. It was a piece of metal with a rail around it at a height of about 6 inches with a thin pad. The camp was at Chang Wangpo. The mahout looked like a kid of about 12. He was probably older.

Despite the lack of comfort of the seat, a 30 minute ride wasn’t bad. I’m not sure the same seat would work for a week’s trek.  There was one steep grade early in the tour which was a little difficult but mostly it was fine. 

This was certainly less scary than horseback riding down Haleakala in Hawaii. There the horses are traveling on skinny trails on cliff edge and often you are over the cliff edge while the horse is turning.

They do something called “elephant bathing” at the camp as well. For that, bathing suit clad visitors sit on the back of the elephant as the elephant lays down in the water and then squirts the people with water after filling its trunk. Fill, spray, fill, spray. That’s not what I was picturing based on the description of elephant bathing. Anyway, they may use the same elephants for both events. Our elephant was very eager to lay down in the river once we entered it.

Our mahout could not seem to get her to move. He finally gave up and splashed her ears with water for a bit and then she was willing to move on.