Oliphants, Mr. Frodo!

We were recently in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we met up with our good friend Maria Mendiburo and her friend/now our friend John Fei. Maria suggested we do what many people do in Chiang Mai and ride elephants, so we did. A big thank you to all of our sponsors, and special thanks go to Mary Bancroft for an advance on Alan's birthday present.

The nice folks from the elephant farm picked us up at 8:30 AM and we set off with a van full of other elephant adventurers. After a quick stop along the way so our hosts could buy food for lunch, we made our way through the countryside to the elephant grounds. We parked the van at the top of a hill and walked down into the valley where the elephants live with their trainers. The skin of the elephants is quite coarse, and we would end up pretty dirty, so the company provided us with outfits to wear for the day. Once everybody was suited up, the trainers brought a couple of elephants close, and we learned how to feed them. With the right commands, they would raise their trunks and we put bananas right into their mouths. Then, with another command (choop choop), the elephants would reach out with their trunks and give you a kiss, some of them quite slimy.

After the morning feeding, we all took turns getting up onto the elephants and learning to ride them, complete with commands for forward, backward, turn, and stop. As you'll see in the pictures, we rode on their necks, right behind their ears. Once everybody had been on an elephant and learned the commands, we climbed on in pairs to go for a ride through the surrounding forest area. We started with Gracyn in front and Alan midway back on the elephant's back and switched halfway through the walk. Our elephant was a little quicker than the one in front of us, so she would sometimes wait patiently and then move quickly to catch up. In the end, we didn't really need to give that many commands, as she clearly knew the route.

After a 45 minute ride, we returned to the staging area to find an abundant feast waiting. We particularly enjoyed all the fresh fruit. We enjoyed talking about our ride and how awesome it was to ride an elephant. Apparently the elephant behind us wasn't quite as cooperative as ours was.

Following lunch it was time for another feeding, and this time sugar cane was on the menu. It was cool to watch the elephants strip the stalks clean and mash them up for eating. There was also another round of elephant kisses, as well as some pictures.

Once everybody was fed, we made our way to the river to give the elephants a bath. They all lay down in the river and we set to work scrubbing their hides and splashing them with water. The elephants also did some splashing with their trunks. Once the bath was over, we did some posing for pictures in groups (the company provided us with a disc of pics that will be uploaded when we can get access to a computer). As we stood in front of the elephants, one of them sucked water up in his trunk, put his trunk on the back of our heads and sprayed us.

The final experience of the day was meeting a four year old baby that they have. He came running up the hill when he saw the crate of bananas we were going to feed him. He would put his trunk around our shoulders and kiss us on the neck.

We eventually had to say goodbye to our elephant friends and head back to Chiang Mai. It was a really great experience we won't soon forget.