Tuesday. We woke to a 7:30am alarm to get breakfast before our 90 minute bus journey to the elephant sanctuary. Our tour guide was also called Nick. We watched a video on the bus which taught us about the sanctuary we were visiting and the stories of some of the rescued elephants. It was hard to hear and I struggled to watch it. One elephant they rescued was being used for work and after losing her baby she refused to work anymore, so she was shot in the eye as punishment. She reacted and swung her trunk towards the people attacking her, so they then stabbed her in the other eye. I can't get my head around how someone could do that, and it upset me. We were told the sanctuary now have over 80 elephants that they have rescued and how they look after them and treat them back to health as best they can, which was really positive to hear. There were 7 of us on the bus in our group. The four of us along with two Canadians called Brian and Yvonne and an American lady called Linda. When we arrived we were given tea, coffee and biscuits then taken to meet 5 elephants who were got to feed. Four adults and a baby. We fed them a snack which for the older ones was water melons and the baby elephant had bananas. The baby was the cheekiest and kept trying to put her trunk in the baskets to find her own bananas. They were all really tame and funny all day, and we could stroke them too as long as we were in their eye line and didn't startle them. Once we fed them a snack we were given a bag of bananas each and a bottle bag with some water and we walked up a dirt track in to the jungle with them. This was really funny because they could smell the bananas so would almost block you from walking any further along until you gave them one. We were all laughing at how clever and funny they were. One of the elephants pulled down a tree on the track and myself, my sister and her boyfriend were on one side with the elephant, and everyone else was on the other side. It was a steep ledge so although we were laughing about it we were worrying the elephant could turn around and barge us off at any time. Everyone else managed to get round after about 15 minutes and we stopped off for some lunch in the jungle (chicken noodles, rice and spring rolls). Once we finished lunch, the group went to see a waterfall which people were sliding down but was far from safe. Nick was the only one in our group who braved it. After that we headed down to the river where the elephants were waiting and we climbed in and tried our best to bath them. We were definitely wetter than them but it was so much fun. Finally we went for a walk around the main camp on the reserve and got to see some elephants just roaming free, and saw how they have all created their own herds within the sanctuary. We followed them as they wandered down to the river to watch the baby play in the water. He was also playing with a tyre on a rope, and wrapping himself up in it. It was definitely the best day I've had in Thailand so far and it was great to see so many people trying to help these animals and stop cruelty towards them. By the time we got back from our day out myself and Lauren decided to stay in and do some washing and phone calls home then called it a night.