Trunking it...

Yep, I have finally fulfilled my dream of riding an elephant. Was it everything I hoped it would be? Was it the relaxing, exotic experience photos would have you believe? Hell no. When you ride a horse your bum hurts, when you ride something 5 times the size, I can't even begin to tell you what hurts! Let's face it, safety isn't exactly prime in Thailand and what you get to ride an elephant on is a perfect example. First, you have to stand on the elephant to get into the seat - bit of a weird feeling, the elephant didn't even flinch mind, and the seat is open. This is fine when you are thudding about on flat ground - the sway from side to side alone though is something, but when you start to go downhill, you have nothing to hold onto but the seat and there is nothing to hold you in. You are also pretty high up and I actually didn't enjoy it to begin with. Of course, we got the elephant who wasn't particularly in the mood to take us for a spin so he was hard to control and then once we got into the river he started eating and it took yonks to get him out of
there. Going through a river on an elephant is an experience that is for sure. There is this loud whooshing of water like two huge boats are being dragged through the water, thankfully the elephant didn't decide to spray us in any way, he was way too hungry. Eventually the elephant settled and it was a nice ride, some people were talking about having been swimming with elephants and we saw some other people doing that, but I'm not sure I'd go that far. Sitting on the back of an elephant whilst he plunges into the water with nothing to hold on to might be taking my elephant obsession a bit far and a bit dangerous, but who knows, it might still happen.
We actually stayed on the river this time. Yep, a raft room which was pretty cool. In order to get to go on an elephant ride we had to go on a guided day trip, with other people and everything. You can imagine profuse delight. Nothing makes me happier than being trundled around in a minivan with a bunch of tourists all day long. Ahh happy days. At 8am we were taken to the famous Erawan waterfalls. They are really beautiful but so much so that they almost look false. The river is a bright green colour, almost luminous and the stone is all shiny and smooth. There are seven waterfalls at various gradients up the hill and of varying heights. I felt hard going up to the top one because Mark was suffering from the heat and at the moment, I find it really cool, in fact almost cold at night. I was banned from skipping up the steps. One could say I was rubbing it in, but moi? surely not. You can swim in the river which was really nice. The fish kept biting my feet so it lost it's charm after a while.
After lunch, we rode the elephant, went on a bamboo raft down the river and then headed to the bridge over the river Kwai. The train had broken down so we couldn't go across it, obviously I was gutted, but no, they put us on a kiddy train and we went along the tracks for 5 minuits, then turned round and came right back, oh, I was rapturous with joy I couldn't contain myself. Really. Oh and this is a random picture I decided to stick in, Tuesday the 5th was the King's birthday so everyone, including myself, was out in their yellow King shirts. this is wahat it looked like on the boat we were on.
After a day like that I began to regret our previous afternoon languishing at the spa, we should have done it the other way round! Elephant riding makes you hurt in the strangest places. Last week, Mark and a couple of friends of mine went to Samet for the weekend which was fabulous and now he is down in Phi Phi due to return on Thurs for my weekend. I, however am already on holiday! Taught my last class last night, God it felt great to say "see you in 2007!" I was so unusually happy my students kept giving me funny looks. Jist thought I'd slip in a quick pic of the view from my balcony - isn't it great? On Sunday I head to Manila and can't wait! Am sure will have lots to tell. Happy Christmas to you all, hope you have a great time!