Earthquakes to Elephants

Here we sit with a direct view of the Golden Triangle and the three countries that meet here, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. As we learned around 9 P.M. Thursday night local time, it also is an area that experiences earthquakes.

From a night spent partially outside with aftershocks that have continued for most of the next day, we moved on to elephants today.

The resort has a connection with an elephant rescue camp with about thirty elephants that reside on the resort property. Today we got to ride them, or at least Giules did. I passed on my allotted time because I knew how much she would love her time with the elephants, so here’s Giules to talk about it . . . .

Hi all - - - Yes, it’s true that I am no fan of BIG THINGS THAT RUMBLE underneath you… (thank you, mother nature for reminding us that you are more powerful than anything else), however I make an exception for riding elephants!

This had to be one of the most amazing and wonderful experiences of my life – and even though I had a sleepless night in the parking lot, I actually forgot about the quake for a few hours and had a blast.

We arrived at the elephant camp to get briefed and trained by the Mahouts – the elephants’ life long partners and trainers from a nearby tribe (being a Mahout is a profession passed from father to son for many generations). After being trained we got on our respective elephants and rode (think riding a large horse bareback, but sitting right behind the ears). We practiced steering, stopping, moving forward and backing up. I loved every moment of it and Jerry generously let me stay on for a second turn while he photographed.

The morning culminated in taking our elephants into the river for a swim. For this, the Mahouts rode with us (probably to fish us out of the river if we came off as the elephants dunked). My elephant had a blast blasting me with water from her trunk and soaking me from head to toe. I cannot imagine more fun!

This afternoon we went to see the elephant camp and had a great time playing with a mother and baby. You can see pictures of all of this on Jerry’s Flickr page.