Day 3 - Elephants!

We were up at 7 to go for an elephant tour at 8. A call to the front desk and we had fried rice, fried noodles, fruit, and coffee delivered to our room. Pretty fantastic eating outside with the rice paddy view!

The Elephant tour arranged driver was waiting for us promptly at 8. I didn't expect to see such amazing views during our hour long ride. It was another "drive and shoot" photography moment like yesterday.

We elected for the "long" elephant tour, which included lunch and a ride through town. It was amazing and Marsela was a great sport. We went through the park, which was beautiful, and had several stops where we could get off. We were lucky enough to see a few monkeys, then a local, who might as well have been a monkey, up in the treetops. He was cutting down leaves and coconuts, then made it down rediculously quickly. We stopped at this really cool hut that he built and he gave us coconut milk in a coconut (tasted ok, not sweet). For Marsela, 2 entire coconuts. She would stomp them, lift the pieces with her trunk, then chew out the insides. She even finished our 2 when we were done.

We were greeted by the locals in their village. On the way back we saw a family of ducks and swans in the rice fields. There were the typical families on scooters and even a van with Japanese tourists taking pictures of us!

When we got back Marsela took a dip in the pool and let me ride on her neck! She played a harmonica, which was a neat trick! We purchased 2 fruit baskets to reward her for her hard work. She loved the corn and pineapples!

After that we got to play with a baby (5 year old) bear! She was too damned cute - about a hundred pounds of "I want to lick you and climb all over you"!




The baby elephant was much more into the food we had and much less into us. She would also go after your camera and other such non-edible things. I was petting her head and apparently I tickled her. She nearly knocked Kate and I over with one trunk swing. Lots of power there.

Lunch was mediocre then we were off to our hotel. I had big plans for the afternoon, but I promptly conked out.