Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Elephants & Tigers, Oh My!

As mentioned in the last posting, the Traveling Hillbilly went on an elephant trek through the jungle. Now I was excited by this idea, but figured the description was probably a little over-blown and that it would be pretty touristy. But this adventure totally exceeded the TravelingHillbilly's expectations! I mean we were literally on the back of elephant riding (albeit, very slowly) through the jungle. It was amazing. The path was basically a little stream that ran through the jungle. I can’t believe that thess big huge elephants make their way through this little stream, over rocks and logs so gracefully. Then just when I thought we were almost back at the elephant camp, we took a detour. The guide steered the elephant toward the river and we actually trekked through the river back to the camp. The whole time I was on this journey, I kept saying to myself, whoever would have thought that this hillbilly would be riding on the back of an elephant through the jungles of Thailand? It was truly awesome!

But the day was not over. After the magical elephant ride, it was time to raft down the river. Again this was in true Thai style. We had our little straw hats on just like you see on the folks in the rice paddies. And we actually floated down the river on a little bamboo raft. It was just poles of bamboo strung together. The Traveling Hillbilly felt just like Huckleberry Finn! As we floated down the river, we had several elephant sightings!

I know this all sounds very touristy but it felt like the Traveling Hillbilly was on an African safari. Okay, so there weren’t really any tigers, but it was truly a magical and very memorable experience.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like an amazing trip so far!! I can't wait to see pics of you on that elephant. Thinking of you and wish I was there too!

NS