Please remain seated and refrain from moving about the elephant.

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Mental Notes

1. Put on 18+ layers of sunblock every five minutes.
1 1/4. If you get a sunburn don't pick at it.
1 1/2. Seriously, don't pick at it.
2. Never leave any form of food or beverage, eaten or not, lying around in a room. It will become a Holy Shrine for insects.


We spent the day at an elephant shelter in a location north of Krabi town and spent the entire day on an elephant trek through the jungle! And getting the opportunity to stand less than a few centimetres from a fully mature elephant takes your breath away. When the time came to mount it there was a momentary pause between Muti and I as we're awkwardly standing there whispering "you first!" "No you go first!" I went first. Surprisingly, climbing aboard the elephant was fairly straightforward although the first few seconds of riding it definitely made me a bit uneasy. It became relaxing after a while, to the point where I could comfortably rest my hands in my lap and gaze at the beautiful scenery without worrying about falling off and cracking my skull open.
Muti did not acheive this level of ease.
They are really quite graceful creatures considering their enormous size and have a leisurely amble to 'em.

Elephant calves begin their training when they are about four years old. They quickly learn and obey the words of command. They get to know their mahout (ma-hoot, driver) and get used to being mounted and dismounted.
A great number of elephants that were previously employed in the forestry industry were re-distributed throughout the country for tourism purposes due to the banning of all logging in Thailand of the year 1989. This followed a disaster the year before in which hundreds of tonnes of cut timber washed down deforested slopes in Surat Thani Province, burying a number of villages and killing over 100 individuals. Some owners however continue to work their elephants in the illegal logging industry, and sadly, some of the animals are pumped full of amphetamines so they can work day and night. The destruction of forests and ivory-trade poaching are placing the wild elephant populatuon in increasing jeopardy. Presently they are fewer than 3000 wild elephants in Thailand compared to a century ago when there were at least 100, 000. Tak Province has the highest number of elephants and is one of only three provinces where the elephant population has increased over the last few decades.


A couple of days later we visited a rubber tree plantation and had a guide enlightened us with what was, unexpectedly, interesting information. Amazingly, Malaysia and Thailand supply the world with 90%!o(MISSING)f its natural rubber. The rubber trees ooze latex from injuries to the stem in the form of a milky sap. The tapping in fact is "controlled wounding" so the procedure doesn't seriously damage the tree. The bark is cut from top left to bottom right in order to expose the maximum number of latex vessels. Once the latex is collected in a cup, workers gather it early in the morning and coagulate it in metal pans using a dilute acid, most commonly vinegar. The resulting cake of rubber must be washed to remove leftover acid, stepped on, then rolled to remove excess moisture. After rolling, the rubber is dried on a rack and smoked over a wood fire to stabilise it before it is ultimately sold to rubber manufacturers.

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