Elephant Trek

Today we set of with our trekking gear for a 3 day trek through the jungle to a hill tribe village where we would meet the local people. We had arranged to meet the kids on the last night so took a trip to the market to buy some small gifts that we could give them. I bought some small figurines of some kind of robot and monster.

It was then a couple of hours in the back of a pickup to take an elephant trek which I was really looking forward to. We had to wait a little while once we got there and bought some bananas and bamboo shoots to feed the elephant I was going on.

The elephants looked awesome when they appeared from the jungle and I started getting ready to get on. It was two to an elephant and I had a bit of trouble trying to keep my long legs from touching the elephant but I managed in the end. There was a guy sitting on the elephant's head who was controlling him and he had what looked like a dowel that he was occasionally prodding the elephants head with to make him do something.

The ride was really good fun and there were a couple of times where elephant's would pull down trees or stop for a rub up against a tree which was quite amusing. I was trying to take photos which proved fairly difficult due to the movement of the elephant and trying to keep a steady hand but I managed to get a couple of good shots. Feeding the elephant was fun, it would raise it's trunk and start making sniffing noises so I would pop a banana on its trunk and before you could blink it was back up again wanting more.

I bought one of the photos that they had taken afterwards as it was really cheap and it came in a really nice frame. We then stopped for lunch before meeting our porters and guides for the jungle trek. Everyone paid 200 BHT for the porters to carry enough water for us for the three days as I certainly wasn't going to carry loads of water with me as it would way a ton and take up too much space in my bag!