Elephant Trekking and more

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Wow what a day, we were picked up from our hotel at 0830 to be driven an hour out of Khao Lak to the Win's Elephant trekking spot. As we pulled down there were lots of lovely elephants that were set up for trekking i.e. had a double seat strapped to them, chained to trees. It was weird to see such magnificent animals chained up and looking so docile and bizarrely quite small. However, I guess it's no different to all the camel trekking I've done in certain countries. Plus as bad as it sounds it is keeping the elephant population up and is helping to keep the economy of these local villages going.

So after I'd quickly got over my ethical dilemma, I know it didn't take long, we boarded our elephant and set off up the path with our aging guide who sported a backward baseball cap and a rather scary pole with a dagger at the end and a catapult. All I can say is the scenery was spectacular. You know that bit in Jurassic park when the helicopters are landing on the island for the first time with he amazing backdrop, I swear we were there today. Sarah and I kept looking out for dinosaurs but sadly none were spotted. But we did see the most amazing array of butterflies and to say the trek was peaceful would be an understatement. Just us, our guide and our lovely elephant trekking through the national park-amazing. We did keep trying to encourage the elephant to make a break for freedom every time we were in deep water away from the guide but elly was having none of it.

We then stopped at a location which had a waterfall which we took pics at although it didn't quite compare to some of the ones we'd experienced in Ghana but was nice to see none the less. Then back on elly to go back to camp. It was interesting to see how they control the elephants through using noises for right/left/forward etc, no different to a sheep dog who has been trained.

So once we were back at the camp we both took turns in feeding elly some pineapple which he liked and then stormed off in a huff when we had run out, typical hey!!!!

Then we were back in the car and up the road for another half hour for an amazing lunch on the river side. We had cabbage soup, breaded fried chicken with sweet chili sauce, rice, sweet & sour chicken, Thai chicken with pumpkin and mixed vegetables. Needless to say Sarah and I were full to the brim after this. SO what better to do than to be driven to a man on an inflatable canoe who then took us down river through the national park for over an hour. I must admit that at one point I did have a quick snooze. Honestly, it was so relaxing and the scenery was breath taking you felt you were in another time/world. We even go to see a black and white river snake snoozing in the tree.

So once our relaxing canoe ride came to an end we headed to the monkey temple. Basically, this a Buddha on a rock which randomly has loads of monkeys living by it. It's cool to see though as the older ones just stand by the Buddha almost protecting it. There was however one very very funny thing here, this was a young gibbon who was pet to the family that looked over the Buddha. When we turned up they let it off its chain and gibbon went crazy for the other monkeys. He was chasing them up the trees and then throwing himself off the trees, then running up and grabbing their tails. He was mental but I guess captivity does that to you. Anyway, we got some great movies of it so at some point I'll upload them. He did also make an attempt to climb up me, TWICE, when he was trying to run away from the other monkeys. As you can imagine a sh*t myself and hid behind Sarah who could not stop laughing at me. All I could say was I've not had my rabies jab and I swear that monkey had it!

After the monkey temple we headed back and I've been asleep all afternoon! Now uploading the pics to facebook as this computer won't let me do it to my blog. Hopefully I've sent everyone who is not on facebook a link so you can at least see the pics. Then it's off to bed ready for some sunbathing tomz morning and travelling for 2 days from tomz afternoon.
Lots of love
Mel x
P.S. thanks Nanny Rita for treating me to this as my birthday present xxx

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