Well, how do we even start!

We arrived in Krabi, Thailand on Saturday, 23rd October. Got picked up from the airport with a sign saying 'Mma Thorgy', we assumed this was their take on 'Emma Thorneycroft'.

Before we set out, we knew we wanted to experience as much as possible on this trip, and if budget allowed, we wanted to go on a elephant trek. So when we arrived, we looked through a few leaflets and found this place called Nosey Parkers (brilliant name) that spoke of how they looked after their elephants and how unlike other places in Thailand, their animals were well treated. Being overly animal loving, we had pangs of guilt as to whether it would be cruel to expect an elephant to lug our bodies around a jungle for an hour, but we decided to book it up and give it a go.

When Monday arrived, we got in a jazzy mini bus which took us to the elephant site. En-route, we picked up a lady and her son who informed us that these were probably the most spoilt elephants in Thailand. We think her and her son helped out doing work there as they seemed to know all the staff really well and went off in another direction to us.

So there was us, no other tourists around, and gigantic, gorgeous elephants dotted around the place. We were guided to a make-shift looking platform with pieces of bamboo and three planks of wood to stand on. Wearily, we went up and seconds later an elephant appeared with a 'seat' on it's back, and somehow, we were meant to try and get on it, from this said platform, with some ounce of dignity and without breaking our necks! Some how we managed to do it, although we did look around to see if there were any seatbelts! :-)

The image for this blog entry sums the whole thing up. I think we got about four elephant strides in and Candy was already claiming she was going to throw up whilst Emma had the fear of God in her eyes and was clinging on for dear life. Now you may be thinking we are being slightly dramatic, and perhaps to an extent we are, but please bear in mind that it was just us two, and a boy sitting on the elephants head that didn't speak a word of English. We're currently in what is considered as 'Low Season' here in Thailand, but in all the pictures we've seen, there's been a group of tourists all going out on the Trek together, but no, this time it was just Candy, Emma, Nelly the elephant, a non-English speaking Thai boy and the jungle...

With Candy claiming she had motion sickness, and Emma in a state of bewilderrment, the elephant plodded along.

As we said, there were no other people with us apart from the Thai boy who acted like we weren't even there, so it was a bit of a concern that we were basically being walked into a jungle and no idea what route we were taking. He could have been taking us to the middle of nowhere and leaving us there for all we knew (for which at one point later in the journey, we think he attempted). Great.

This elephant trek really lived up to it's name. It was a trek. No flat surfaces or easy walking. It was all either up or downhill and we're talking steep. It went through deep rivers and bushes (literally) and there were times that we very nearly fell off. This is not an exaggeration. We feel Nosey Parkers should think about investing in some seatbelts. We also got to see some other wildlife in the jungle, mainly monkeys having fights (which the guide seemed to like aggravating) We did see a baby monkey hanging off it's mum though which was so cute.

The guide then took our camera and proceeded to instruct Candy to climb onto the elephants head for a photo. Candy tried to explain that if she got on the elephant's head she would not be able to get back off again, it took some time but we think he eventually understood that it wasn't going to happen. The guide then got off the elephant and started to walk away (with our camera) and the elephant just started doing his/her (we think it was a she) own thing - grabbing some leaves and having a general wander around (up a hill!). We then decided we obviously looked scared and figured that he may well take us on an even more "terrifying" trek so at this point we decided to smile and grin to our hearts content, constantly! To which then, we think we actually scared him.

The guide then walked in front of us taking various pictures of us on the elephant (with our best happy faces on) when he stopped for a cigarette. At this point Candy said to Emma "oh he's stopping for a cigarette" to which Emma genuinely replied "who the elephant?" Yes, 10 seconds later Emma did realise what she had said but at the time clearly didn't think about what she was asking. Candy figured after that comment, between Emma and the guide, she really didn't stand a chance.

After the ordeal - we mean trek - we were asked if we wanted to feed the elephant. Candy was braver than Emma and happily obliged, feeding the elephant cucumbers whilst Emma took a fair few pictures. We then were taken to the river where the elephant had a bath. Annoyingly could not get any good pictures of him/her spraying herself with water but still got some good ones. After that we were shown another elephant who was eating pineapple leaves. They whack the leaves against their legs with their trunk to shake off the root so they just have the leaves to eat. So clever.

After this, one of the guides that worked there (this one did speak English) asked us if we wanted to see a spider. Candy said yes (what?) and Emma (sensibly) said no. Candy herself still does not know why she said yes so your guess is as good as anyone's. Although on reflection, she claims she wanted to get seeing one out of the way. So anyway, Candy proceeded to follow the guide to this spider whilst Emma hung back. The guide stopped, turned round and said "there's the spider" to which Candy turned round and realised she jad just walked under a huge spider's web with a giant red and black spider in the middle!

To be fair, during the trek and on reflection, it really was a great experience. We did think that at one point we were being secretly filmed and would appear on "You've Been Framed" and it would make a great sketch show. We've been laughing about it ever since and the elephants are truly amazing animals. They're really clever and although they are huge, they have a very calm and peaceful aura about them. Something we'll never forget. We're big fans!