Thailand Adventures: Oh the elephants

Do you know that elephants are my very most favorite animal in the entire world.  They are.  I know that's hard to believe given my huge mini obsession with the furry creature that lives in our house. (I am talking about Oliver, Ben is a person so it's normal to be obsessed with him.) And I do give a lot of blog-time to sharks, whom of which I also quite love.  Sharks though, they are my second favorite.  Elephants my first and basically I don't really consider Oliver an animal so he doesn't count.  Glad we are clear.  I will move on.



Elephants.

When we decided to go to Thailand the ONE thing I knew we had to do was ride elephants.  It was not even a question for me.  I wanted to get up close and personal with the little guys.

We researched and knew we wanted to choose a place that treated their animals well.  As much as I know elephant riding is a tourist attraction we gave extra care to understand all we could about the farm we visited.  We chose an elephant trek that was further than most.  When we told our driver where we were going he said, "Oh that's very far!" and while he tried to talk us into another adventure we held strong and made the trek to the elephants.

It was gorgeous.  Basically the backdrop for everything is Thailand is gorgeous though.

Here is what you should know should you ever consider an elephant ride:

• Elephant rides are bumpy and it's hard to get comfortable.  Especially if you are a man (or woman) that's 6'3".
• Elephant trainers sit on the elephants head/neck to ride them.  It's actually a VERY strong part of their body.
• Our Elephant trainers were eating sunflower seeds.  Ben had some sunflower seeds as well and offered them to our trainer.  He loved them.  The shells ended up all over the elephants head.  Poor girl.
• Our Elephant was a girl.  She was 30 years old.  Her name was Thai and I don't remember it, we will call her Mae.
• When Elephants walk in water they hold up their tails, I guess they don't like them to get wet.
• Speaking of sunflower seeds, the trainers let us feed our Elephants sunflower seeds.  I don't know if this is healthy, but it was basically the highlight of my experience.
• Elephants sneeze a lot.  On you.  This happened to Ashlee and Deneal.  They must get a lot of dirt stuck in their nose because their sneeze will get you real dirty.
• Our Elephant trainers had bamboo sticks with little hooks incase the Elephant got out of hand.  Luckily they didn't because I would have cried if they had to use it.
• As much research as we did, I ended up feeling kind of bad about riding an Elephant on an hour long hike in the 102 degree weather.  It stressed me out that we were probably hurting them.  Ben tried to ease my heart.  It kind of worked once the Elephants got to the river to cool off.
• Elephants are quite nimble.  They walked on a skinny path and through things I was pretty sure they were too big for.  I was quite impressed.
• Basically Elephants are as huge as you imagine and as awesome as I knew they would be.  I don't think I will ride another, but that is only because I love them and I don't think they need the weight of me on their back!

 And do you know what's even more awesome....

Riding scooters in Thailand and coming up on an Elephant pet hanging out by a tree. Hello Friend!