This is something I've wanted to do for so long! My Aunt Jane had a painting of elephants in her house (although I think they were African Elephants) and I was fascinated by them. When I heard Joshua was moving to Bangkok...I knew that someday... someday, I wanted to ride an elephant when I was visiting.
We decided to do it while we were on Koh Chang. When we started our journey, we climbed up on a platform, the elephant would walk next to it, and we climbed on. There went Erica and Thalia!
For most of our journey (2 hours) we were close to each other...parts of it we weren't. Lizbeth and I were on the baby of the elephant Thalia and Erica were on. The mama was 35 years old, ours was 15.
See our guides foot? That's how he 'steered' the elephant...that and voice commands.
Each elephant had their own guide....but after awhile ours got off, took my camera, and started taking some photos of us.
I told Lizbeth we were 'the grandmas on a elephant.' She told me she would have never gotten on one if I hadn't wanted to do this!
I loved petting our elephant. He (she?) has all these little hairs all over him...and such long eyelashes!
I love this...his(her) big head and ears! So, so sweet!
My foot on his back....
After going through the jungle, we went through a little village...stores, elephants, cars, trucks, motorbikes...all together....
After walking down a set of stairs (which had me...maybe, scream is the word? I could NOT believe an elephant could walk down these stairs!), we ended up at the river.
"the stairs"
Once we got to a deep part of the river, there was a platform where we could easily climb off the elephants. Then our guides took off the seat...and the padding (LOTS of padding) underneath the seat...off so we could sit ON the elephant to ride...and for the purposes of not getting all the padding wet, I assume!
Into the water we went!
We literally went INTO the water. The elephant rolled over sideways ... not completely, but enough to throw me off...
We swam around with them (Lizbeth didn't do this part...she's not a strong swimmer...and the idea of being in deep water with a massive animal...well, she sat on the platform and enjoyed watching us all get tossed in the water!
and then, looking at the next four pictures, you can see the process of this sweet enormous elephant throwing me into the water...dumping me in the water would be more accurate!
My neck...you can see the veins! I'm wondering if I screamed...or if I was just holding on for dear life? Not sure, but you can see that this time, he put his head down...down...down...so I rolled over his head into the river!
Elephant: 1, Judy: 0
I didn't win that battle! (Not that I tried!)
Oops...he was throwing me back in the river!
Whew! He was tired of this and we started heading back to the platform. I need to get some of Erica and Thalia's photos to add to this. There were a couple of girls on the platform that each took one of our cameras. The girl who took mine, took mostly photos of me...and the one who took Erica's, took mostly photos of Erica and Thalia.
I absolutely LOVED this!!!
Here is the platform. I took a series of videos of my guide putting the seat back on...maybe I'll add it later....
I think sweet Thalia was a little nervous here????
From the river, we began the trek back to the place we started...
This was definitely, definitely a highlight for me!
Back at the resort, I noticed....
and at dinner, Lizbeth was craving a Coca-Cola...the other side looked like a normal coke bottle, but I liked the Thai side!
We ended our day walking along the beach...going up to get some gelato.... after a late lunch (4 pm late)... That's Thalia walking...
It was an extraordinary day in Thailand!
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