A Step Off The Beaten Path

We finally saw elephants!!! Our driver and guides picked us up from our hostel at about 8:00 AM. We stopped at a few more places to pick up other people and then drove for about 40 minutes to a market where the guides bought bananas and sugar cane for the elephants. Then, we rode another 40 minutes up a mountain to the elephant training camp. At the camp, they first made us change into our uniforms which consisted of a loose shirt and what they call “sexy pants”, their sarcastic way of describing the huge, billowy pants they gave us. One of our guides, Nong, taught us about elephants. She explained the difference between African and Asian elephants. One way to tell the difference is that Asian elephants have two bumps on their heads, whereas African elephants have a flat head. We fed the elephants and then decided to practice our commands:

• Hoo! : Go
• How! : Stop
• Song Soon! : Put knee up (so we can step on it to get on their back)
• Hoi! : Walk Backwards
• Way! : Turn right or left

Me and Dad practicing commands

Mom is happy to have made it on top of her elephant.  I think she is a little out of her comfort zone!

My favorite elephant is the baby!

We practiced our commands for about an hour and then we went to see the baby elephant. The baby would kiss you and then put a hat on your head! Finally they let us ride the elephants! riding the elephants was less fun than I thought it would be! My Dad and I rode on a elephant that was greedy so, constantly throughout the ride our elephant, Molo would stop and grab a branch and yank it down for food. At one point, Molo was only on her hind legs trying to get food! When we finished our ride we went to the river and bathed the elephants. At about 5:00 PM they dropped us off at a really nice hotel (because their cabins had termites and we couldn’t sleep there). That was the whole first day! 🙂

Me feeding an elephant

Gage feeding an elephant

Evan feeding an elephant

The next day, we ate a really good breakfast at the hotel and left to go back to the elephants. When we first got there, our guide Justin had us change into our new uniforms: the same pants, but a new blue shirt. Then we got right into riding the elephants. This time, my dad and I got a really sweet elephant named MooBay who gave us a much smoother and shorter ride! Riding MooBay was a big relief to my dad because he was still sore from riding Molo! Riding the elephants was so uncomfortable that I now feel that elephants aren’t really meant for riding.

After hiking to a beautiful waterfall, we rode to a white Karen village. I think that our guides hoped we would buy something from the village because the people were poor.

Me and Evan at waterfall

To end the day, we went bamboo rafting which was really relaxing. Once, our guide totally scared my mom by pretending he saw a snake when it was really a tire!:)

This baby elephant is so happy and playful!

Overall, I had a lot of fun on this trip! It had its ups and downs, but it was very exciting and I’m glad we did it! I’m also happy I chose the Chang Siam tour instead of the others because I experienced a lot more of nature than I would have with the other elephant training tours.