The ElephantThing

Nov 13
Elephant day. Bit worried about having to walk too far today. And am still knackered, guess I must be a bit jetlagged still.

They were a bit late turning up, I was hoping they wouldn't, tbh hah. But they did and so we set off on a very bumpy hour and a half journey to the Hug Elephant Sanctuary, one of about 200 in and around Chiang Mai.

First off, the man said, we have to walk up a little hill to feed them...(uhoh). Then we walk with them through the forest for a bit. Ummmm.
Well the first bit wasn't too bad really, we meet the elephants at the bottom, and they followed is up (nothing like a lumbering elephant behind you to speed up your climbing).
So, buoyed up with enthusiasm,  I thought I would carry on up to the next feeding area. Baaaaaaad idea. The path became increasingly muddy and difficult, more of an obstacle course than a path, really, and after nearly crashing into the undergrowth 5 or 6 times, and having to be saved by my fellow intrepid walkers, I did eventually fall down a slippery slope into a muddy puddle. Ripped my nice new £2 elephant print shorts in the process, and got covered in mud. Lovely. Took 3 of my new friends to pull me up, bless em, and so the guide cut me a stick with his handy machete, and I scrabbled my way back down to civilization, ahead of the other mad fools.

Over lunch, I made some more new friends, a couple from Phoenix Arizona, who cleverly spotted that I was a big fan of their local celebrity Alice Cooper! Might've been the tattoos, the t shirt, or the phone case that gave it away, bit we had a nice chat about my favourite person, which was nice.

After lunch - 'Is not spicy',...........(Liars),
we went down to the river....(there's a song in there somewhere), where we stripped off , (to swimming cossies), and covered the elephants and ourselves with mud. Then we all jumped in the river and washed off! The elephants loved it, sometimes completely submerging themselves and then poking their trunks out to spray us with water. Lots of fun!

Then we left them behind and continued along another challenging 'footpath', to a beautiful waterfall, where we crossed an extremely  dodgy bridge (felt like Indiana Jones…)

I wasn't gonna do it originally, but then I spotted a shop selling tea on the other side, so it had to be done.
Not too many problems here, although I did forget my sunglasses on the way back, good job my new friends are more observant than I am.

Before the trip back, I had to change in the loo, which would've been fine if I hadn't seen a 3 inch spider running about in there earlier. Luckily, he'd gone into hiding, so I thought it best not to mention it to my new friends.

Back home at last to my little cupboard, where I had a major panic,  having lost my bumbag, with all my cash and cards in it. After a near melt down, I discovered it outside the door, where I had dumped everything to get the key out..........honestly, I scare myself sometimes.