Ubon Ratchathani and Surin

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We arrived in Ubon after crossing the border back into Thailand by foot giving us 15days on a new visa. We managed to stock up on some essentials like allergy pills and travel adaptors.

It was nice to be back in a Thai city and be the the only westerners around. Ubon is famous for its died cotton and there were little handicraft shops everywhere. We only stopped one night and there was a huge cockroach in our room that had me running around like a mad person. We left for Surin the next day.

Thinking we would be able to find out some more about the elephant study centre we'd read about we wandered around Surin for ages and noone could help us. After a night here we just caught the bus 58km north to a village called Ban Tha Klang. It was the least bus like bus we'd been on sa far, pretty much a truck with some seats propped up in the back but it was a good journey. The driver was lovely and picked me a huge lily from a pond on the way.

When the bus arrived in Surin we quickly organised a homestay before going into see the elephants. There were hundreds of them but we spent the majority of our time admiring a little baby one that was 2months old. At 2pm we went to see the 'talent show' I volunteered and had a huge elephant walk over me and one give me a massage. We weren't to keen on the show as it was a bit circusy but it was obvious that the elephant here were well cared for and loved by thier Mahouts. Afterwards we made our way to the river at sat fishing with the giggleist locals ever who fed me really spicy food! That eveing we got talking to some volunteers staying at the centre and stayed up playing spoons with them and thier Mahouts who agreed we could bath the elephants the next day.

We woke up after a nice lay in and visited the elephant temple and graveyard. They also have a paper making factory in which they use elephant dung to make the paper. They recycle everything here! After lunch we walked to the lake and waited for the girls to arrive. When they came Jordan and I both got on Seepri a 72yr old heff owned by a Mahout called Thai who had inherited her from his father and him from his father before that! Seepri waded into the lake and sat straight down. Jordan was the first off and was tricked into getting on the back of an elephant who notoriously rolled people off in the water. I rode Seepri back to the homestay and we settled in early ready to get off early the next morning.

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Photos

PED PED PED
She'd tricked me into eating a really spicy salad (PED = Spicy)

Seepri (72yrs)
Heading home after bath time.