After a rough day yesterday and the introduction of some antibiotics I felt well enough today to move on from Chiang Mai. We arrived in Pai just before lunch, after a very windy journey through the hills in a minibus, good job we had empty stomachs! We raced to get a hostel, dumped our bags and booked an elephant trek straight away for this afternoon. After a quick change and bite to eat (thats all we had time for) we headed off to the elephant camp in the back of a pick up truck, ready for our 2 hour trek.

When we arrived we had the chance to say hello to the elephants and feed them. They were so strong, their trunks managed to snatch the bananas out of our hands in no time at all, even if we hid them behind our backs, they would just wrap us up in their trunks and pull us towards them until we released the banana, very funny! Also on our trek was two girls from New Zealand, they went on one elephant and we were on another. Our elephant was called Tadah and she was 17 years old, a baby really when you consider elephants can live to 100 years old! We also had not realised how hairy and spiky the elephants are to touch!

Our trek was on the elephants without seats and not much to hold onto either! To begin with Sarah sat on Tadah's neck and I was on her back, which was the worse place to be as Tadah has a particularly protruding spine bone that was rather uncomfortable on the bottom!! It was pretty crazy getting up onto these huge animals - Tadah weighed at least 3 tonnes! To get up, Tadah bent her trunk for you to step on. she would then lift you and you had to haul yourself up over her head! The difficult bit then was trying to turn yourself round when on top!

When on top you were really high up - it was pretty scary, especially without much to hold onto as she plodded along. We were taken down to the river first to go and give them (and us) a bath. The guides told the elephants to blow water out of their trunks over us completely soaking us. Tadah would then go down onto her knees and lean sideways to slide us into the water, it was great fun! After doing this a few times, Tadah then pulled out a master stroke, instructed by the guides and much to their amusement, Tadah would shake her head vigorously while we were sat on her neck causing us to go flying, especially Sarah who fell backwards into the river with a huge splash! She was so powerful, you have no chance of staying on, although it was a bit like elephant rodeo for a little while!

We clambered back onto Tadah, this time Sarah was on her back and I was on her neck and we were taken for a walk through the forest. Tadah was being very naughty at this point and kept eating from the path edges (understandable since she eats 200kg of food a day) but she kept wanting to go down steep banks to get it, which was scary for us on top of her, especially on the neck when she bent forward to eat! She also decided that it was great fun to blow elephant snot all over us at regular intervals - it was bright green!! We also came down a very steep hill towards the end, we had to lean right back and hold on to whatever we could - extreme elephant riding (good job our insurance covers it!)

After we got back to the camp we were treated to a soak in the hot springs to relax very sore bottoms! We enjoyed our trek so much, one of those things we have always wanted to do, although it was incredibly painful - we will be aching tomorrow. If we were to do it again we would definitely have a seat and something secure to hold onto, what an experience with a really cool animal! There were times during the trek when we didn't know whether to laugh or cry as we bounced along and the rug we were sitting on nearly slid off, there were quite a few fits of giggles between us.

We now have to decide what to do next, go on a hilltribe trek here or elsewhere in Thailand, or even leave it for the time being and head straight on to Laos - we cant decide. Watch this space to find out where we end up next!

Keep in touch

Love A & S xxx