Hello All,

We are back in Surin after our second week of elephant adventures.

This week we were entertained by the local children on the Monday night doing a welcoming dance/ceremony. It was quite interesting to watch them dance and then to get the girls to join in, I kept my distance and just took photos. At the end as a thank you Claire and I made camp doughnuts - which evybody liked.

Mon was away this week so I had Buitan (think that's spelt right) she's a bit more energetic than Mon but still a submarine in the water. So it was another week of hanging on for dear life and spending most of it soaked.

The new boy elephant we picked up last week was being ridden this week as part of his domesticaing. It was quite funny to watch Nina on an elephant half the size of everybody elses.

Tuesday we went to collect sugar cane which was going so well until Worn found a massive snake skin in the cane field and then everyone was a little more apprehensive - it didn't make an appearance luckily but that didn't stop us all moving to the other end of the field to carry on cutting.

On the way back Becca and Vanessa stopped at one of the houses in the village and brought back two puppies. I think they planned to take them all the way home with them but luckily saw the error bof their ways yesterday and they are going back to the village on Monday. However for the next three days they and Claire spent most of their free time de fleaing and playing with the dogs - apparently they are only three weeks old.

We also tried a bit of kayaking - although the river is still too high to safely kayak in it the fields are still flooded enough to play in. It all ended badly though when we tried kayaking through the trees and there were lots of spiders! I told Worn when we do the review at the end he's only getting a 5/10 for kayak routes.

At the end of the week we got to make paper out of elephant poo - which was nice... Claire really enjoyed it and it was a lot less smelly than we thought. Apparently elephant stoumachs are a bit rubbish so they don't process the food very efficiently. Therefore what comes out is pretty much just brown plant fibres - which makes paper making really easy.

We got back to Surin Thursday night and as half the house left on Friday everyone went out for Pizza and beers. It funny to be sitting in a Pizzaria as tey turn the lights off and everyone makes a move to go home at 9pm. We ended up in a thai club which was also strange. The dance floor was covered in little tables for you to put your drinks on. When the western dance music was on no one showed much life but then at 1am the dj stops and a local thai band come on and play thai rock and everyone goes mental. No idea what they were singing but I guess it was good. Finally the creepiest part of the night was the toilets. In clubs in the UK you get the freshen up guy - who tries to give you towels, aftershave, etc and trys to get tips - bit annoying. In thailand the guy puts a warm towel on the back of your neck and starts giving you a shoulder massage while your going to the loos!!! No one warned me (and I'm not good with people invading my personal space) so I may have freaked out - I wee'd really fast, kept saying no and at the end ripped the towel off my shoulders threw it in his face and ran off. In hindsight maybe a bit of an over reaction but that's not right.

Anyway we waved of Nathan, Charlie, Vanessa, Becca, Danielle and B yestrday night as they went off to Chang Mai and the Thai Islands. The 7 of us left are going to a silk and silver village today - me and six girls who all want to shop. I can hardly wait...

Mr P