Wow hard to believe that its the third day already...no sleep...have absolutely no ability to control my legs....but hey misery loves company...and yup Shauna is in the same boat...she crys more than me though....girl thing. Well sleepless night....can barely move...and manage to roll out of the torture chamber known as our bed....amazing...managed to get a bruise from trying to sleep...that is a new one. So we kinda get up....time for a coffee....I sneak to the door not knowing what is on the other side....I crack it a bit...take a peek ....all is clear...the fly plague from hell has moved on...all they left were their dead brethren...and a lot of them...all over the place. So we make some coffee and put on our wet mahout outfits again...yay....

Bob and John meet us and it took every thing in me to get on the back of that scooter...it really is a sad thing to see an old fart like me cry like a baby.....Bob...well he laughed his ass off...again....the weather is great a lil rain...and cloud....not bad at all. Off we go to find our Eley's....sure enough right were we left them. About here I find out why my eley is hobbled....turns out she is a great big "Gai"....thai for Chicken. Seems I find out in broken english that she freaks out at the weirdest stuff and runs for the hills....last time she ran...the mahout was on and he went for a huge tumble....nice ta know..as you don't realize how high up you are on an eley till your up there...funny thing she is the biggest of all the eley's here.  

At some point we were on a highway walking along and then a semi comes up the road...well...the eleys very smartly walk to the side of the road....they all gathered in a gaggle...and they started to grunt and groan and mine was swaying her head left and right .....making weird sounds....remember I am on her head....nice ride....did I mention my ass hurt....any additional movement other then absolute stillness seemed to cause major mind numbing pain...but enough of my issues....as I sway up on her head. It was kinda like they were talking to each other..."Hey Susan...you see that big ass monster...it was trying to kill me...No Barb...that thing had my number.....ohhh yes she did..ohhh no she ditn't...she had mine...and it had great big teeth....I'm sure it snorted fire also....oh my buddah.....if it gets any closer I am running for the hills....hey what do you think of the loser of a mahout on my head....bet I break his ass.....hahahhahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" right about here they trumpet loudly....

We know and understand so little of the animal kingdom...k so that is why mine is hobbled...she likes to run....but what is the use....if they want they just break the chains or rip the tree out that they are tied too....all of them have done it at some point...pretty funny....I think they just put up with mahouts...cause they bring good bananas.  

Ahh well off we go and we find our gals....covered in dirt...and grinning I might add...nice thing is it didn't rain too much. They are pretty excited to see us....my gal kinda wants me to pat her trunk I think....she seems to like it.....so who am I to say no....we get a big chunk of the dirt off...and we err eley loads up the chains and stuff and then I barely managed to crawl up into the place my ass really does not like...and we all meet up graze a bit....and off to the bath. Shauna really got a bath this time....heh heh.....nice thing is that the bugs were not too bad today....yay. So we crawled out of the lake and headed back to the mahout camp.....just down the road. We pull in and Eley gets down to let me off.....I could not lift my leg....no kidding...had to lift with my hands...so I oh so gracefully fell off....but landed on me stumps...yay. We tied them up and tehn got a buch of fresh bamboo stalks....they like that....each one grabs a stalk and uses it as a fan to swat flies...they do a good job.....better than me.  

The camp has this really cool elephant built out of straw....really cool....its almost life size too with tusks....so we parked my eley right in front of the straw eley....now john is an animal lover has like 10 dogs and 10 cats....grew up with his eley...they have a huge bond loves eleys....so he goes over to the straw eley...and starts to kinda shake it and make growling noises....well crap.....my eleys eyes grew to the size of freakin saucers.....she backs up....starts swaying like crazy......and John starts to laugh his ass off.....hmmmm kinda messin with fire I think.....mahout humor hahahaha....till you get stomped by your eley......

So we go to the scooters and with great grief get on and head back to the villa for breaky....a fresh clean mahout outfit.... for breaky they always cooked us eggs and some kinda sausage...they didn't seem to have salt or pepper...weird but they put it out with this sauce...kinda like soy sauce....and on the lab is a plate of breakfast that looks just like mine...so I does me egg in this....and mmmmmm very good. Who'd a thunk it...soy sauce on eggs is good. Anyways...they pick us up again and off we go to get the eleys....they are a lot cleaner now....I am not joking...I can barely get on her....and she really helped me get up....did I mention that when I am not on the eley my butt cheeks pulse at the same walking pace as the eley. So bizarre to sit down to eat and your butt cheeks pulsing...ahhhh too hard to explain....you gotta experience it...

So off we went got on and now we take them back thru a nice trail and river to the main refuge center.....time for the eley show...fist up the eley baths...now my eley is a star of the show...so she is in...but I can't do it...my ass is too sore...so chad fills in for me....and Jill for Shauna...as our eleys are in the show and theirs aren't. So we and Supat stand by the watering hole as about twenty eleys and mahouts get into the bath and go to town......chad at one point got a full trunk of water right to his face...pretty funny stuff.....then they all get out get in line a couple of eley's grab a drum a flag and one a drum stick and they start to play the drum then they all march into the stadium to show us what they can do...amazing stuff....but the piece de la resistance was they set up canvases....and our eleys started to paint. I would have had a hard time believing this unless I saw it with my own eyes....she painted a portrait of a couple of elephants....one carrying a flower in her trunk....so cool.....got video pictures and we bought the portrait also......so cooolllll....others painted waterfalls....flowers etc etc...

So at the end we fed em all a bunch of bananas....Princess walked into the stands.....and grabbed a bunch of bananas from one of the shrines...but its okay as she is royal and all....time to go....last ride....we get on...ouch.......and walk thru the jungle back to our resort.....nice and peaceful....hard to describe actually...then we are done...we get off painfully I might add...get some certs saying we are now officially amateur mahouts....take some pics...and say goodbye to our eley's and mahouts. If you ever get a chance get close to an eley and look em in the eye and tell me it doesn't effect ya.....sure did me! Great noble beasts and the pain and bugs and rain and mud and muck was all worth it....Shauna was sad to go and we had a great once in a lifetime adventure.....

Time to pack up and get into our taxi back to Chiang Mai.....we shared one with Chad and Jill....they bought a pic...frame and all...sooo needless to say the taxi was very fullllll.....no worries though we managed....Chad and Jill were off to Cambodia so we gave tehm some tips...and we stopped at there hotel to drop them off.....now somehow they ended up with one of our bags...we get to our hotel and teh bag with a lot of the important stuff is not in the taxi....argggggggggg freak a bit...call Supat....he looks at the camp not there...then our driver takes me to the hotel we dropped Jill and Chad off at I run in and ....on teh luggage cart is our bag....all is good again.......

We are back at the D2 cause its awesome...she upgrades us cause she likes us..nice dibs..and we settle in for the trip tomorrow....we wandered around the night market a bit go back to the room and take a big bath.....then I notice all me war wounds on me legs...not sure what the hell is going on but covered in red puss filled dots....mmmmm....sure this will be fun

We were going to go out again...but we didn't we just parked it in the hotel...too comfy. Flight tomorrow early am to Koh Samui...diggin that idea......