sore heads and sore bums

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today we are finding it very hard to do anything. we ache all over and find moving our muscles very difficult. yesterday was probably the highlight of our holiday so far, we visited thom's elephant camp (very disappointed to find out it wasn't run by thom yorke, lead singer of radiohead, the only person i know who spells their name that way). we got up at half seven, ate our breakfast, and got a lift in a jeep to the camp about 5 km outside pai. when we arrived one of the first things we saw was an elephant playing the harmonica with his trunk, i think i knew at that point that it was going to be a very good day. first we fed the elephant, then we had to climb up it's trunk to get on top of it. i sat on his neck and triona sat on his very bumpy spine. there were four other people on two elphants, a dutch man and his daughter, and a german woman and her english boyfriend, they were all really good craic. each elephant had it's own guide, our one was easily the maddest. we were led through the fields, forests and hills of the countryside for about 2 hours, by which time our bums were sore and we were glad to have reached the river. when we got into the water the elephant started spraying water into his mouth and then into my face, next the guide poked the elephant with his stick and said some magic word that made him shake his head and body from side to side flinging both of us into the water. we did this several times until the guide got the elephant to do his next trick. the elephant put half his head beneath the water, we sat on his trunk, then he flung us over his head onto his back. we spent the best part of an hour playing with the elephants in the water, it was fantastic. when we got back to camp there was a dvd showing on the tv of our adventures at the river, we just had to buy it.

we celebrated later that night with a drink called samsong, it's a thai rum which we drank from a bucket also containing coke, lime and six multi-coloured straws, this set us back about E3.50. at the moment it's nearly 10 at night and we are still wrecked. triona has a craving for meanies, real food will have to do.

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