Today, Eloise and I were collected from the front of our hotel at a time of the morning I had not previously known to exist, and driven down to the banks of the nearest river in a bus to which the wheels appeared to be attached by a combination of sticky tape and prayer. Neither of us could keep our eyes open without jamming matchsticks into the sockets as though we were a couple of cartoon characters on vacation, and the bus didn't do anything to help by jarring us awake every couple of hundred yards whenever it ran through a pot hole just deep enough to spot Satan heading for work, but we didn't care - we were going elephant trekking. Both Eloise and I were going to be able to put a big tick on our respective bucket lists at the end of the day, and nothing short of the sudden unexpected appearance of the four horsemen of the apocalypse was going to spoil it for us.

Let's just get one thing out of the way right now. I don't have the faintest idea what the name of the river was to which we were heading, nor can I begin to hint at the name of the town in which we were staying - and no amount of research on the internet will shed any light on the matter. I don't know whether it's because local addresses are written in a format which appears so alien to westerners that we simply don't know what to type into Google, but the internet resolutely refuses to be in any way specific about where anything in Mae Hong Son actually is. Even the likes of Sherlock Holmes would end up scratching his head in frustration. Type "Mae Hong Son" into any sort of search engine and you'll get reams of articles describing it as a huge province of Thailand, as well as several travel sites telling you about the lake at the center of town. The first site you come across will describe a magnificent region of rain forests and rivers, home to hill tribes so distant from each other that they think they're the only people on Earth, and then the next will talk about the quaint local shops as though Mae Hong Son is a village the size of a postage stamp. In the end, you tend to just give up and refer to everywhere within a thousand mile radius as Mae Hong Son - which really doesn't matter anyway because if you go into your local travel agency and ask to book a trip to the region then you'll probably end up exactly where we are. Wherever the hell that is.

Upon arriving at the river, and after being forced awake by having our heads repeatedly smashed against the window as our bus driver attempted to demonstrate the non-existent off road capabilities of the bus, we were ushered on board a long tailed motor boat as though it was about to leave without us. Trying very hard to give the impression of being a wooden canoe passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial, this would've been slightly more authentic if it hadn't had a hulking great outboard motor attached to the back which caused us to enjoy most of the journey with our hair sticking out horizontally behind us and the front of the canoe jutting several feet out of the water as we sped towards our destination at slightly less than warp speed. I imagine that the forest must have been alive with the sound of creatures whooping and howling at each other as they awoke to a new day, but all we could hear was the roar of the motor and the occasional yell as our guide shouted something at us about hanging on for dear life as he attempted to negotiate a corner. I really hope this isn't a taste of things to come - if they start fitting outboard motors to the gondolas in Venice and shooting around the canals at rocket speed, I may have to consider taking my own life.

The scenery, I should point out, was second to none. Having become acclimatised to living in the village and walking into town every day on a paved road, albeit a road bordered on both sides by rain forest, it was fantastic to finally find ourselves sailing along the river with no sign of civilisation anywhere. The sight of the surrounding mountains peeking through the mist, towering above the forest, was enough to take our breath away. At our destination, we carefully tied our boat to a small post on the bank in case it decided to leave without us, and clambered onto dry land. Moments later, as if on cue, a couple of elephants emerged from the water in front of us and casually stomped off along a well trodden track into the forest, the sight of which left us with enormous smiles on our faces and giggling like a couple of schoolgirls for the rest of the day. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that can prepare you for the sight of an elephant in its natural habitat, unfettered by fences and free to go about its business without feeling the need to stop every now and again to perform a trick or eat a bun. There aren't a lot of buns in the rain forest. And don't even get me started on the whole peanuts thing - who the hell decided to train elephants to eat peanuts? Do they make giraffes eat Twiglets, or force feed Chicken McNuggets to tigers? No, they don't. Elephants already spend every waking hour stuffing food down their faces just in order to survive - and they can only digest about 40% of that - so unless you happen to be able to lay your hands on a sack of peanuts the size of Texas, you're just going to be wasting everyone's time.

We followed at a discrete distance, smiling ear to ear, pointing excitedly at the lumbering creature in front of us and whispering "elephant" to each other at regular intervals as if unsure whether we were seeing things. After no more than a five minute trek through the forest, which nevertheless resulted in our producing enough sweat to flood the river, we emerged quite suddenly into a large clearing which I can only describe as an elephant camp. This was the moment when, if we had been the stars of a major Hollywood movie, the camera would've shot up into the canopy to reveal a bustling village of elephants and mahouts, open fronted wooden huts held up by a wing and a prayer, and laughing tourists being soaked by jets of water from numerous trunks. Elephants were entering and leaving the clearing from every direction with tourists clinging to their backs for dear life, while local trainers known as mahouts guided new arrivals up steps onto wooden platforms from which they could board their big grey rides.

Obviously, nobody is expected to simply launch themselves from the platform onto the back of a waiting elephant and attempt to cling onto its ears for purchase. Having said that, a couple of planks nailed together and held in place by a harness that looks as though it's seen better days seems to be sufficient to satisfy the seemingly non-existent Thai health and safety regulations. The arms of what I'm laughingly going to refer to as your seat are made up from thick branches which do their best to stop you tumbling sideways, although you still mount your ride in the full knowledge that any unexpected move on the part of the elephant is likely to launch you skyward quite spectacularly or cause you to slip underneath the harness into the path of your ride where you will quickly find yourself resembling a pancake. Crossing some of those more exotic items from your bucket list is going to involve a certain amount of risk to life and limb - and yes, I am fully aware of the irony.

Once Eloise and I were perched precariously in our seat, our mahout jumped nimbly onto the elephants back as though to demonstrate that we were just a couple of wusses who couldn't even ride an elephant properly. No dodgy looking wobbly seat for this guy - he just plonked himself down on the elephant's neck with his legs dangling over the side and signalled for us to get under way. We could see no sign of any reins - by applying pressure with his feet or rubbing a stick against the side of the creature's neck, our mahout was able to steer our elephant with remarkable accuracy. I've read a lot about the cruelty with which elephants are treated in parts of the world where they are not carefully rounded up and placed in zoos - and there's irony for you - but I can't say we encountered anything of the sort on this trip. Yes, the mahout would occasionally poke our ride lightly if it seemed to be daring to develop a mind of its own and leading us into the deepest depths of the rain forest when we were actually supposed to be heading for the river, but I didn't get the impression that the elephant was remotely bothered and often its only response was to smack the mahout in the mouth with its trunk. Moving away from the raised platform at which we had boarded, our elephant stomped its way across the clearing and down toward the river.

It seemed as though our mahout had come to an unspoken agreement with the elephant to spend as much time scaring the crap out of us at the beginning of the trek as possible so that we could sit back and enjoy ourselves later on. I suppose this makes perfect sense - if the last thing you do on your trip makes you wish you were dead, then that's probably what you're going to remember for the rest of your life, whereas if you spend the first few minutes screaming in fear and then the rest in a state of utter relaxation and bliss then you are far more likely to recommend the experience to your friends. We had been expecting a gentle, relaxed stroll though the forest, so it came as something of a surprise that the first thing our mahout did was to steer the elephant into the river. Not the worst thing in the world, you might think, except that the river threatened to drown us even on the back of the elephant and getting into it in the first place involved making our way down a steep mud covered bank on which we slid the whole way. During this manoeuvre, we slipped so far forward in our seats that we had to hold on for dear life in order to avoid disappearing under the harness and landing in the water where we would've made handy stepping stones for the elephant. Mounting the opposite bank, our shoes full of water, wasn't much better - by the time we were finally back on solid ground, we had been battered about so much that I was sure my brain would be shaking around inside my head for a week.

But the worst was over, and the rest of the ride was everything we had hoped it would be. Satisfied after its wash in the river, our elephant was happy to amble along, swaying gently from side to side as we trekked through the forest and along well trodden pathways between collections of huts occupied by members of local hill tribes. Occasionally, our ride would stop to munch on some tasty looking treat next to the path, giving us an opportunity to release our now automatic grip on the edge of our seat for a moment and gaze around at the scenery while the mahout desperately poked at the elephant's thick neck with his stick as it resolutely ignored him. It was obvious that he had only as much control over the elephant as it wanted him to have, and once a nearby tree had been reduced to a collection of bare twigs we would set off again, sometimes in the direction we wanted to go.

From time to time, we would move over to the side of the track to allow another elephant to pass carrying members of local hill tribes on their way back from a market somewhere deep in the forest. These would always have a ridiculous number of people perched precariously on their backs, each holding a myriad of bags, boxes or bewildered looking small children. For the first time, we got a real sense of how important elephants are to the people in Mae Hong Son. They provide a much more important service than simply bringing the tourists to town: here, elephants are the local taxis.

Continued Tomorrow

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.