1 post tagged “elephant”

Today was another day we'd really been looking forward to.  However, after VV's apprehension towards the elephant at the wedding, we were a little concerned as to what may happen.

We'd booked a trek with Siam Safari, who have a really environmentally-conscious setup, and also donate a proportion of their income the the primary schools in their area.  (There's plenty of elephant-oriented spectacles in Thailand, but many are more 'circus-like' than we are comfortable supporting).  I think, however, this was the most tourist-oriented thing we did, and there was a bit of everything.  Rubber, elephants, food, water-buffalo and monkeys.

We were picked up in a bus and had an hour trip to the peninsula at the very bottom of the island, where we swapped to a Land Rover and headed up into the mountains.  And boy, was it steep - the driver stopped and put it into low-range to make it up!

When we arrived, we were taught about rubber, where it comes from and the fact that it is where Thailand got, and continues to get, a very large amount of its income from.

Next, there was a bit of a performance from some baby elephants.  You could already see that they had bonded quite strongly with their Mahouts (handlers) and really did look like they were having fun, dancing, playing with balls and even painting!  Genevieve loved it and, at the end, we bought a bowl of fruit to feed them.

Next, it was a quick trip in the LandRover again to where we go onto our elephant and had a ponderous walk through the jungle, for 30 mins or so.  It was amazing going up some quite steep slopes, and in particular, down.  Very surefooted, but quite bumpy on the way down.  We were in a group of two, and at one point the mahouts allowed a camera swap so we could get the big shots you see here. (Which is a good thing - a member of staff took some shots which we could buy at highly-inflated prices, and they were CRAP!)

Surprisingly, the 30 mins didn't go too quickly.  Genevieve didn't talk much, but you could tell she was loving it.  Indeed, now, if you ask her about Thailand she gleefully exclaims "I RODE AN ELEPHANT!"  At the end, we bought another bowl of fruit and VV, Nai and I took turns feeding our ride some watermelon, bananas, cucumbers, bamboo and the banana leaf lining the basket.

We then headed out to see a demonstration of how they pick coconuts in Thailand. Instead of climbing up and cutting them down, they train a monkey to twist them around and around until they fall off.  Pretty clever!  We were then told about the water buffalo, and how they used to be a beast of burden and would plough the rice patties, although now they use tractors.  The final part of the tour was to look at some thai foods.  We were shown what goes into a green curry, and the fresh herbs and spices were ground in a motar and pestle in front of us.  It smelled glorious.  They had a sample of a (VERY mild) curry for us to try, and VV just had some coconut rice.  They then showed us how to split a green coconut, and how they grate the flesh.  Finally, we were shown how they get the coconut oil.

A quick trip back down the hill in the LandRover, and back into the bus and before we knew it, we were home for another superb meal prepared by VV's favourite, 'Chef'.