Bathing elephants
Trip Start
Jan 29, 2008
1
6
32
Trip End
Mar 04, 2008
Kanchanaburi,
Thailand
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The boat took us down the river to an elephant camp where we got out on a sketchy looking dock and got down to our swimwear. Then we climbed on the elephants and the fun began!
I had an elephant to myself whereas everybody else seemed to be sharing. Cindy got her own for awhile too. My first elephant was small and apparently 45 years old. She had a big chain around her neck and it linked her to two other elephants
One of the awesome Kitti Raft staff
. I sat right in that area so the chain made it a bit more uncomfortable than it should have been. Every time her handler (who stood on her behind me) made her dunk her head under the water, she rolled to the side and I had to hang on for dear life so it was a good thing the chain was there. It was so much fun. She wasn't much into swimming though, just rolling and dunking. After bathing with her for awhile I got transferred on to another elephant, the biggest one there. He was huge! He also liked to swim and took me right under several times. He wasn't chained to the other elephants and sitting up on his neck was very comfortable. I figure that is the way to go when you are riding elephants. I fell off his back quite a bit but it was easy to climb back on since he was standing in deep water. I just had to swim up to him and the water level was pretty much even with his back. The handlers had us practice our balance standing on the elephants' backs. I was a bit shakey at first, but eventually figured it out. During the bath, I saw a couple clumps of elephant poop float past me but managed to avoid it. Good thing we were swimming in a fast-flowing river.When all the bathing was over, I was alone on my big elephant and the handler was trying to get him to come over to the dock to let me off his back. But the elephant would not listen and went off in the opposite direction. He walked into very shallow water with me still on his back and I realized just how tall this boy is
Cindy rocks
! I was waaaay up there and on a rogue elephant to boot. But it turns out he just wanted the bananas that were waiting there for him and his friends, and went over to where Cindy was feeding the other elephants who had already let their passengers off. She gave him a few bananas and then I asked her to walk over to the dock with her bananas so my elephant would follow. It worked very well. I got to slide over his head down his trunk and on to the dock, like a freaking pro. Well, maybe not that gracefully.Feeding them was fun too. They would wrap their trunks around the bananas and shove them in their mouths. If you were good you could get them right at the tip of their trunk between their nostrils where they would curl the tips around the banana. But you had to be careful of the snot when you did that. The nostrils are a very moist area. It was so cute how they would shove the bananas in their droopy mouths without even swallowing them and reach out for more as quickly as their trunks could.
They are really calm, docile creatures. It is amazing how comfortable you feel up on top of them and swimming through the water with them. I am quite a liability on this trip though because I did manage to get injured there. Actually I have gotten injured everywhere. I have a long, shallow scrape on my hand from a door at the Sheraton. Then I cut open my leg on a car chair yesterday. Today I fell through the bamboo platform walking to the elephant dock. The bamboo just broke from under me and my leg went right through. I almost lost my shoe. Sim came rushing to save me and I was fighting him pulling me up because I was still trying to get my flop back. I eventually got it though and he pulled me to safety and told everyone not to stand on the bamboo, it seemed to be weak
Bathing elephants
. Thank you, Captain Obvious!Then when I was on my little elephant, the big one backed up behind us right onto my leg and tried to sit down. So my shin got wedged between my elephant's side and the big elephant's butt. That one hurt quite a bit and now I have trouble flexing my ankle. I noticed all my injuries are on one side of my body though and Cindy figures that one side of my brain has turned off. At least the other half of my brain hasn't gone on vacation with it.
After the morning elephant bath, we went back to Kitti Raft for breakfast. We had a few minutes to clean up a bit first. After breakfast we went floating down the river on bamboo rafts. There was a big crowd on the rafts. I was on Sim's raft and he started out the trip by using his oar as a guitar and he played quite an amazing guitar solo on it. After that he sang to us as he paddled us down the river.
The float was perhaps a bit too relaxing after my active day yesterday and my fun morning. The group then divided up into vans and my group went to the elephant camp to ride elephants. While we were there, we were trying to explain to the guy in charge that the three of us could share an elephant
Practicing for the circus
. The guy wasn't getting why Robert was with two girls so I told him that Robert had two wives. Robert said "yes, two wives. Do you want that one?" and nodded to me. The guy was very pleased and said yes. Then he took me away from Robert and Cindy and brought me to another guy there with our group. He said to me "this is your new boyfriend, but it is only temporary. You come back to me after the elephant ride". So off I went on an elephant with my new boyfriend. I don't know how I feel about getting passed around so much. Is it that everyone wants me or everyone wants to get rid of me?Riding the elephants in a chair wasn't nearly as fun as bareback in the river but it was OK. They walk so light-footed but its not a smooth ride. You went considerably higher and lower with every step they took. The chair is uncomfortable because you are sitting on a wood bench with an iron frame around it to keep you in. So your backrest is iron and there is another iron bar across the front of the seat that jams itself into the back of your knees pretty good. We walked around for about an hour on the elephants. Mine was very hungry and she grabbed every small tree trunk along the way and munched on it as we walked.
From the elephant camp we were taken to another waterfall, Sai Yok. It did not require any hiking. You walked from the parking lot through some market stalls and then there it was. After this visit we had lunch and then said goodbye to Sim and Kitti Raft, and were driven back to Bangkok. Cindy gave Sim their email address and told him he could stay with them in Canada. He asked if it would be a free stay and Cindy said "yes, as long as you don't stay long." Sim replied "no, not long, only ten or fifteen years."
As we were heading out he called me over and put some little leaves in the palm of my hand
The big elephant
. He did this to another girl standing there too. He poured water in our palms over the leaves and then told us they smelled like marijuana. Now knowing what a trickster he is, I was skeptical and just gave him a funny look, but the other girl put them right up to her nose and sniffed them. Right then they started popping open, into her face, little seeds spitting out of the leaves. It was pretty funny.Once we got to Bangkok, the minibus took us to the train station. We got there pretty much just in time for the train we wanted so that was great. No waiting around, which is very unusual in Thailand. We took the evening train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya where we are going to explore the ruins of the former capital of Thailand. The train ride was about two hours and it was a third class train. That means there is no air conditioning, way more people than seats, and the windows are wide open the entire way. It's quite a loud ride with the windows opened and the train rattling along the tracks.
