I'm such a tourist!

Yep. Today I did the tourist thing -- I rode me an elephant. This is something I always wanted to do since I first saw Packy at the Portland Zoo when I was a kid.

When the van dropped myself and a French couple off at the ranch, they put me on my own elephant with a guide. As we set off with me in the chair, I started asking a lot of questions about the animals. My animal had a very long Thai name that I can't remember, so I called her Betsy. She's 19 years old (they live about 100 years, so she's still a youngster) and eats 200 lbs of food and drinks 150 liters of water each day. When the guide realized that I wasn't afraid of her (I kept reaching down to pet her neck), he took my camera from me, climbed down a leg that she had raised, and had me move to her neck. I got to ride there the rest of our trek while he walked along, sometimes leaving us alone. He did climb back on and sat in the seat when it was time to cross the river, but only because there was a steep decline and he wanted to be able to grab me should I go ass over tea kettle.

Afterwards, I got to feed her a basket of cucumbers. Each time I'd hand her just one, she'd poke me with it until I gave her a second one. Pushy broad! Then I watched another elephant get is bath in the river. It was funny watching the guy try not to fall off as the elephant was diving in the water. He stayed on top the whole time, though, scrubbing her down.

Then I went for a swim up the river and when I came back, hung out with the elephants, handing them vegetation, until the van returned to take us back.

I was a little concerned, since some of the elephant ranches are known to not treat their animals very well, but I was assured that this one was very kind to the elephants. And the travel assistant was right. They allowed the elephants to stop and eat whenever they needed to and only used the stick to lightly tap them when they needed the to move. It was kind of like me tapping you on the shoulder -- very gentle. He did the same thing with the heel of his foot a couple of times, but it was all very gentle During my solo ride, the guide told me to poke her twice on top of the head to get her moving again and I did it with my index finger. It actually worked -- you don't really need to use force at all.

I have to say, this was the best! Elephants are so gentle and I just couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I meant to get a photo of me in a Velo Bella vest during the trek so that I could submit a proper ride report, but I stupidly forgot the vest back in my room. I'm leaving for Kho Phi Phi tomorrow morning and I'll be there 3 nights. I've been invited back to the ranch when I return. They want me to call one morning so that they can pick me up. They've offered to let me spend the day helping out and learning to ride them completely solo -- free of charge. I may just take them up on that since I can't stop smiling.