An elephant and a camera...

Feeding time!

Getting her camera stood on by an elephant on her birthday – Tamara has one heck of a story to tell (it wasn’t my camera lost/destroyed this time!). I was bit nervous before we went. You hear all the stories about how terribly the elephants are treating in Asia. But I am pleased to say that the Elephant trekking was awesome. The dudes riding them controlled them 90% by voice. You should have seen the poor elephant (it was mine and Spikes, which we had nicknamed Grumpy because he didn’t want to get in the water) when it stood on Tamaras camera. The guy was yelling at it and this HUGE creature wasn’t sure which way to walkor what to do next. We spent about an hour total on the elephants and 20 mins swimming with them. Even got to ride on their heads. That was a pretty cool experience... but the hair is SO sharp (like a scrubbing brush) that I got a rash on my legs. There was even a drive through, where on the way to the swimming our guide dude ‘pulled in’ to a tree and got a snack out of it for himself. Not something I expected at all. He could get on and off the elephant by climbing down its ear/front leg. It was neat. The elephant would put its leg out so the guy could slide down its ear and walk down its leg. 

We had a feast cooked by our Thai mum (the lady running Tamara and Andrews hostel) for Tamara’s birthday, including a cake with ‘happy birthday Tamara, for our friend’ written on it. So kind of her to arrange that for us and to cook. We made sure to cook all our tours and our moto today through her as the island is struggling at the moment. There are so many bars, hostels and tour agents – and this is the high season (the hardest thing to get it accommodation, everything else is easy). They suffered some bad mud slides two years ago and are still climbing their way out. 

Running out of gas

Today we hired a moto and spent five hours driving from tip to tip of Koh Chang Island. So much fun. We ran out of gas and some nice tourists driving past went and got us some (the gas gage didn’t work). We found neat beaches and I was freaked out a bit by the hills/state of the ‘roads’ at some points. Pot holes, dirt, steep hills and skidding tires. We had planned on only hiring it for three hours, but once on a mission to the end of the island there was no turning back. It was a cool view and we could see a lot of the other islands. There were dogs just chilling out in the middle of the road along the way. Should have stopped for a photo. But you can imagine it. All these other places to chill out and they choose the middle of the road. Hopefully they learn before it’s too late.

And I lost my belly button bar and couldn’t find the ones I brought in Camden... needless to say it grew over a bit and was a mission to get back in (and a bit painful!). Lesson learnt (I hope).

One more thing. I love the sprite here (only followed by this yummy lime one they have) it tastes way more lemony than at home. Delish.

Coconut (and Spike) on a deserted beach we found on the moto trip