Man 6:00 am comes quick.....Shauna had a good night sleep I was out like a log....yayyyy. Now comes the interesting part. Time to get out of bed right normally not a problem....but herein lies the problem. To demonstrate what I am talking about it is best to play along...so lay down flat on your back....good nice and comfy...great...now try to raise your leg straight up....feel inside your groin.....the tight muscle .....ya that's the one...that is the one that makes raising your leg possible. To sum this up in as few words as possible as ya'll have lives an stuff...goes like this...that muscle that is working so well for you to raise your leg...well for both me and Shauna...the Eley some how broke that muscle....like seriously...it no longer works on either of us....unless you are really into major pain. So we managed to talk each other out of bed...ya know giving positive reinforcement....cause it works for dogs right....you can do it Shauna...its ok...etc etc....don't worry she is doing the same for me. Nice way to try to get out of bed...but being the troopers that we are we manage....by rolling out.
 
We manage to get up and into our nice and wet and stinky mahout clothes....cause incase you forgot...we is in da jungle.......nothin dries in da jungle.....mmmmm...make it down the hill for our mahouts to pick us up to try to find our Eley's. Bob laughs his ass off whilst I try to get on the scooter....I think I scared the monkeys away with my crs of "OHHHH MYYYYY BUDDAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"....Bob thought it was really funny...I'm always glad when I can entertain. Then we is off.....ohhh did I mention it was pouring out......the weather was off and on in the rain department but it was all good...as if it was sunny out...you would be reading an obituary right now cause ohhh my buddahhhh it gets smokin hot in da jungle...the rain keeps the heat down a bit. So off we go and truck down the road to a trail where I think we left our Eley's...and we get off and start trucking into the jungle....nice....green....lush...what the hell was that...it had teeth and like ten thousand legs and could move at the speed of light........oh my buddahh!!!!   damm I must be hung over..seem to be sensitive to big ass thngs that I never seen before. K so me an Bob wander away from the path and sure as you can't fit an elephant thru the eye of a needle there was my eley....hiding behind a tree......absofreakinlutly covered in dirt......can't blame her as I notice a plague of flies swarming right about the area I sit...yayyyyyyy for me.  

So in a cool way we unchain her and again she is hobbled so we unhobble her and she drags the chain out of the jungle and folds it up (it is really cool to watch her do it...I got some video) and we load her up with it....and I shout "Mai Long!!!" and she lays down and we try to beat the mud off her....no problem...she doesn't even notice....she stands up and I give a quick Song Soong.....and right about there the pain hit me between the eyes...as I tried my damdest to clamber up her....I think she felt bad for me cause I had my one leg on her leg and she litterely tossed me up....she probably got tired of my whimpering in her big ole ear....as it was right near my tear stained face......k so now I am sitting on a big mud pie...and in a plague of flies....who really are annoying...one swat I kill like 5 at a time personal record yay for me. So I am beating the air with me hands and Bob again is laughing his ass off at my pittiful attempts....John, Shauna's mahout I noticed always cut her a fresh bough from some tree and would hand it to her so she had some way to swat the flies...then I noticed he would actually swat them off her...very gently....not sure I saw flies on her though...and he sure grind a lot and babbled to Bob in Thai a lot....Bob would grunt Bae a lot and never once swatted flies off me or gave me a bough...see another example of booby discrimination I think....even in the jungles of Thailand.....strange.

So guess where we is going....to the Eley bath after some serious grazing.....now again riding in the pain I am in is not really my happy place...then add in major fly plagues and mix in mud and rain....the odd sighting of strange moving things in thejungle that would scare Chuck Norris.....oh my buddahhhh....I can't even raise my legs... to sit on the ears.....my legs are dead to me...cept the pain..that was quite alive. Finally we get out of the jungle...and the flies do lighten up a bit yay. So we keep sauntering....knocking down trees....you laugh....no really....and not sure but every time we see an eley doo doo on the trail (very big can't miss em)....my eley would stop and put her trunk on it and sniff like it was crack cocaine or something....the animal kingdom is really full of great joke material.

We finally make it to the eley bath...and saunter in.....and scrub like crazy....My eley didn't like to dunk her head too much...Shaunas did as did Jills so they both got good baths too....so I got most of the mud off and we crawled out of the lake....now time to go into the jungle again and find a parking spot for our eleys to graze.....You guys catching on yet.....feed the eley...wash the eley....feed the ely...etc etc....ohhh find food....and feed bananas. I am pretty sure if my eley couldn't knock down a tree to get a banana...she would climb it.

So off to the jungle...beat the flies etc...and we find a nice spot for her and set her up and I swear to buddah....soon as I got off.....she started throwing dirt on again.....crapman another bath is in order....funny thing is that she grinned at me as she did it....hmmmm me thinks eleys are smart. Ohhh it was really funny cause at some point Jill's eley didn't wait for her to get off...and she threw dirt up all over her....I laughed my ass off at that!!!   Again...I think I saw a grin from her eley when she did it.  

Off we limp to try to find our scooters an head back for lunch and a break. Gettin on and off the scooter was killing me....Bob really thought it was funny. So the previous evening we were talking to the manager of the resort and I asked any chance of having some Tom Yung Gai made up for lunch...and she said no problem an no spicy....I was quick to clarify...no no spicy good! So sure as an eley can sneak up on you without hearing and grab you buy the leg and beat you against a tree....Tom Yung Gai....and ohhh my buddah it was good! Made fresh in front of us. So afeter eating time for a bit of a break....an holy crap...legs getting worse.....so just chill and admire the tranquility...the pulse of the blood flow in my legs really disturbed my tranquility however.  

So 2:00 rolls around and Buddah must have been watching as we got clean mahout outfits to put on yayyyyy. So I try to get back on the scooter as does Shauna as she is hurtin big time too.....and we head to the jungle for you guessed it.....find eley....beat as much muck off....get chains.....try damdest to get on....ride around jungle grazing...then...to bath. funny thing this time...John Shaunas mahout does not get on...so she is flying solo....and her eley knew it..I sorry to say it again....but laughed my ass off as she hung on for dear life as I am not sure who was washing who.....at one point Shauna might have been under water for a good minute.....then she would pop up...sputtering....Mai long mai long.....hahahhahahahahhaha good times...Elephant wine hhahahahhahaha. She never lost her cap amazing......John was splitin a gut also. My gal obviously respected my wishes and only almost drowned me once.....mmmmmm eley wine......

So we got that done and had a leisurely walk back to a new spot in the jungle to park our eley's and this time it took everything I had in me to get my one leg around eleys ear to get off....legs are beyond dead...my ass actually pulses at the pace of an elephant walk.......one cheek then the other....and repeat. Bob....yeah he really thinks my pain is funny.....

The day is done...so back to the villa for a traditional thai supper. We manage to drag our sorry butts off the scooters and to the villa and change and shower....mucho difficulto.....

Supat and his girlfriend...(one of many)...show up with fresh fixins for supper and they commence to get everybody chopping mushrooms and veggies etc.....cept me....dang it's on a holidy....no chopping for me. Turns out they are missing some kinda ingredient...don't even try to get me to repeat what it is.....so Supat want to go to town to get some stuff and he hollers at me to get up and lets go....alright...I crawl onto his scooter and off we go.

This is where I wish I had grabbed my camera cause off we went to the local town where al the mahouts live Supat included to get some stuff. Supat is great his english is not bad and he is telling me about the area....turns out two weeks prior a big storm rolled thru and only hit the resort...no power ofr a week....oh my buddah that would have sucked as no air conditioning...etc etc....so we pull into town....Wow this was the real thailand. Little huts and we go to the local store and we go in....awesome the family is gathered on the floor....to the leftr and teh store is to the right.....we take off our footware and off we go to find what Supat needs....nope....none there. Then the man of the house invites me over for a shot of Thai wiskey.....how can I say no. So i go ove and he hands me a shot of moonshine thai styal and I pop it back.....it almost cured my legs....oh my buddah.....mouth on fire....smile thank him Kop Kun Krup.......then out comes the cooked bugs.....he starts to gesture for me to give it a try......ohhhh man....always saw this kinda s*** on lonely planet now I am living it....he takes a chomp....and the crunching sound is what did me in...I almost said ya....how can a guest say no...but I waved off....Supat laughed his ass of and off we went, crawled onto the scooter then back to the villa...for supper...didn't ever find what we were looking for. Awesome experience...just wish I had a camera.

So no worries we are gathered around our table....they are cooking up a wicked Thai supper.....then it goes stupid...started off tame but then got stupid.   I notice a big ass bug...on teh wall and go to take a look...Supat sees this....and he just grabs it....and starts to play with it...he says that it is like an elephant as it has some kind thing that looks like a trunk. So he puts it on the table and Shauna freaks...and give out her war cry....scared me I tell ya.....Supat laughs his ass off.....and of course he starts to play with it more....putting it in his mouth and stuff.....fun stuff....so Supat realizes Shauna isn't vibrating from happiness an he grabs his friend and tosses him away to be free....and goes back to makin supper.

So about this time a couple of wierd looking flies gather near the light above our heads...no worries right...me and Shauna pour a couple of Captains and start to chill....funny more flys show up....no problem...supper is almost ready. Then we turn off our light....light a candle and turn on another light farther away. No worries right....well not quite....they started to show up in the thousands....at the other light....mean time we are joking about it and the first course lands on the table awesome plate....we start to chow down....we notice above us that geckos had gathers .....lotsa flies right....and a great big one....they are munching away..no worries....then Supat's girlfriend slips and accidentally turns on the light above our heads.....OHHHH MYYYY BUDDAHHHHHHHH....thousand of flies start showing up....we giggle now worries right.....she turns out the light...we start to eat laugh at the geckos.....then we notice the odd fly in the food....the missus at this point is not happy.......then we are really swarmed by flies...ha ha hahhhhh.....yay....Shauna is starting to freak out the conversation is really going to s***......Jill and Chad are plucking flies out of the food...good food by the way.....right about here....Shauna screams I here a ploppppp and then something lands on my lap and I don't know who freaked out who more but he took off like a bat outta hell...seems one of the Geckos fell off the light...and what are the odds but it actually landed right in the middle of Shauna's Captain Morgan.....with a splash....he took a swig and jumped out and landed on me lap....k now Shauna is freaked I am laughing...mostly cause it wasn't my drink....I'll give it to her...she tried as did Jill and Chad.....then the next plate shows up and more flies show up.....Shauna's hands are flopping around like an epileptic on crack.....conversation is pretty done.....then Shauna gives in.....she bails and heads for the room....Supat is even swatting at this point....I hang on for about 3 minutes more get a bit of the second plate in me it was good....but flies taste like s***....I just get up say "I surrender".....and run for the room....Jill and Chad lasted another minute....then they bailed too.....at a running pace I might add.

We are now huddled in our bed.....and we heard Supat slapping like a mad man.....and he starts to let us know how they were actually winning and he had to retreat.....and that was that......a weird end to the day....time to sleep.......big difference...I am sober...trying to sleep on a mattress with not one soft redeeming quality....no sleep for me that night........but no worries as we are up for 6:00 am yayyyyyyyy