Our day started at 9am with a jeep trek to our first location. I say jeep, but imagine that crossed with a pick up truck with seats in the back, and on top of the driver. In our car were 4 Asians, me and Will, and a German dad and his daughter. Why is this relevant? Well as nice as the German was, he didn't know when to shut the hell up. I wanted to throw him off the back of the truck a little.
We went to an elephant centre, where we firstly fed 3 baby elephants. Adorable! We fed them bananas and took photos. We then went for our elephant trek, our one was called Ballowan. We trekked around the park, feeding her bananas and taking photos.
Next was the baby elephant show. They were led out holding each other's tails with their trunks, before performing tricks. They were given hula hoops on their trunks, and spun them to music. They also did various positions like headstands, and used harmonicas. Volunteers were brought out for the elephants to play football and basketball with. They were treated well but I still wasn't comfortable!
Even more so when we next went to the monkey show. A pig tailed macaque, of which we previously saw in the wild jungle, was on a lead and consistently pulled back to it's trainer, and forced to climb a tree and fetch coconuts. Additionally, the crocodile show consisted of trainers pulling the crocs tail about, forcing it's jaws open, and hitting it with sticks! I kinda wanted the croc to bite his hand off......
Later, we visited the Big Buddha statue, a gigantic golden Buddha temple situated up a hundred steps. We were blessed with good luck by a Monk with holy water, and explored the beautiful temple.
Next was the not so beautiful mummified monk. From what I gathered from the terrible English translation, this monks body didn't decompose after his death, and so his family decided to display his body in a glass casket for all to see. Whilst weird as this was, when we saw the monk, he was wearing raybans. Standard.
Onwards and upwards, bleeding from my ears as the German droned on about the stock market, we drove up steep uneven dirt tracks to a waterfall. Hiking up 80 feet, we were able to swim in the much needed refreshment of the waterfall. Heading back down the mountain was just as fun as going up. Will and I hopped on the top seats, situated on top of the jeep. Hammering down steep jungle roads at 70mph. It was like the best roller coaster in the world. Except getting smacked in the face with passing trees. Whack!
Next was the Buddhist garden, decorated in religious statues and covered in wildflowers. After this, we headed back to the hotel, which was equally as wild! After a shower and refuelling, we headed out!
Ark bar was back and booming, and the rest of the night was a drunken blur. Damn the buckets!