Hmm, I really wanted to update again but I feel scatterbrained now,
buut I'll try anyway...
A few nights ago Dave and I rented a motorbike. Yesterday we cruised
the town! It was really beautiful. A minute drive out of the town
leads you to believe you are in the middle of no where... Rolling
hills and mountains and streams and little villages. And lots of fog.
I can't even explain it. -It just seemed magical, like in a child's
story-book. We followed our map to a waterfall that was unexpectedly
crowded with local children - which was really fun to watch.
Life is just so much different from North American kids. Tons of Thai
kids playing on this cliff of a waterfall unaccompanied by any adults.
They had all slid down the falls so much (on purpose) that the rock
was smooth and quite literally was a slide by nature. Dave was brave
enough to try the 'slide'. I may have, had I had long shorts on like
him or the other kids, I'm pretty certain it would have hurt bare bum
and legs, so I just watched. I went up to my waist, but the water was
pretty cold and shallow and the sun was going down, so I didn't swim!
I had the most fun just being on the back of the moto watching the country side.
Today! - We rode Elephants, again, but finally bare-back! - No seat.
And my oh MY. Let's say had we been on the elephant that the 2 other
girls were on with the SMOOTH and ROUND back, it would have been 100%
fantastic! - But, our elephant was much larger and thus had a
protruding spine that was about 3 inches wide and about 4 inches OFF
of its actual rounded back. IMAGINE sitting on a hard elephant spine.
My butt is SO bruised =(. Dave was in the front most of the time which
was tolerable for him, he wasn't hurt so much because it is a lot
flatter, but I was in the back for about an hour and a half. When Dave
was on for the last 30 minutes he was wimpering a lot, so I think I
did pretty good - even though there were times I almost just wanted to
shout LET ME OFF, and walk the rest of the way- I managed to wedge my
hoody under my butt good enough though to last the whole time. Don't
get me wrong though, if you sat on the elephants neck you'd both be
comfy for a long time.
Anyway the ride WAS still fun, and we BATHED in the river with the
elephants!!! There was only another couple of girls with us, so 2
elephants in total. We walked into the river and then the elephants
laid down and we got to scrub their heads while they blasted us with
water from their trunks! Then they rolled to the side! so we all fell
off. They did this a lot, so we fell off a lot. Then when I thought it
was over I climbed onto my elephant and he stood up, which is HIGH.
Dave wasn't on at the time, and my instructor told me to hang onto the
rope that was wrapped around the elephants body. The elephant then
began to SHAKE like a bull and I went flyyying through the air and
back into the water... I will admit I was more scared then having fun.
It WAS fun but I was scared they would step on me by accident. And my
fears slightly DID come to life for poor David. After I got flung off,
he went on, to be flung off, after he fell, the elephant stepped on
his foot! Since we were in water with soft sand it was not full
pressure, so no broken bones, but a really bad scrape.
So again, lots of fun, but pretty uncomfortable. The water was so
refreshing though, and it was amazing and cute to see the elephants
getting frisky in the water. The girls we were with bought a dvd of
the film footage of all of us. I just copied it from them but I'm not
sure how well it copied. So hopefully when I come back to Canada we
can all laugh at me and Dave being flung off elephants, and sigh that
we are ok. Ha!
New Pictures