Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): Elephant Rider!!

Pai is a little town right in the hills and mountains of the far North. Its only about 140km from Chiang Mai but due to the steep winding hill roads the ride took over 3 hours! We found a place to stay and hit the tour shops to organise elephant trekking! We found a small family company who only had one elephant, so we'd be the only ones in the jungle and river on our tour!

The next day we got up ridiculously early and were picked up by the owner of the company for the short drive to the elephant camp. We came round the corner and saw this huge elephant being fed sugar cane, her name was Boonmaa and she was our elephant for the morning! We headed out at about 9am into the jungle on the top of a big seat on Boonmaa's back. We were about 4 meters up and as we entered the jungle there were loads of butterflies everywhere. The guide was always speaking to the elephant and they had a language which enabled him to control her so perfectly, he even got her to lift up a tree that had fallen over the path! She was so good but half way through they had what can only be described as an argument, which went on for about 5 minutes! Some sugar cane cured that and we were on our way again. At the half way point the guide took some pictures and got me to sit on Boonmaa's head! It was a lot more bumpy but loads of fun. We headed out of the jungle and back to the camp where the guide removed the seat and put a little hand rope in its place. We jumped on Boonmaa's back and headed for the river!

As soon as we got to the river we gave the guide our cameras. He jumped off at the shore and shouted commands for Boonmaa to go into the river. She loved the cool river (it was about 36 degrees) and legged it straight in. We wandered along a bit, thinking it was nice, then we were suddenly drenched with water as Boonmaa squirted us in the face! Next the guide got her to sit down, jump up, roll to the side and basically try to throw us off....she succeeded many times! Each time we'd have to wade back up the fast flowing river and jump back on, usually while being squirted by our cheeky elephant! It was so much fun!!!

After the river we were carried back to the camp where we cleaned ourselves off in water from some nearby hot springs, lovely :) That afternoon we returned to our hut and played with the baby monkey that lived in the complex. It was only 4 months old and very cheeky!! In the evening we had a BBQ with the other guests, fresh fish with lemon, mmmmmm!

The next day (a couple of days ago) we embarked on the mother of all journeys, the 26 hour journey from Pai South to the beautiful island of Ko Tao....