The next day on the island was a bit cloudy so we decided to explore a bit rather than attempt to sunbathe. We decided to try a hike to a waterfall but on the way we stumbled across people riding elephants and decided to give it a try. Needless to say, I was really, really excited.
One tends to forget how big elephants truly are until right next to them or on directly on top of them. To ride an elephant we had to take off our shoes and then climb on by standing on a very tall mounting station. We sat on a little bench which was connected to an elephant saddle. The elephant guide/driver sat directly on the elephant right behind its ears and used his feet and a wooden cane to steer it.
Riding an elephant was basically like riding a huge draft horse. The steps were huge and slow and the pace made us rock and kind of swing from side to side. It was really cool to feel the skin of the elephant on our feet and it felt like dry and rough leather. The ride was about an hour long and took us (Peter on one elephant, Daniel and Ken on another and Sean and I on the last one) through a little bit of jungle and then around a little pond. One of the coolest parts of the ride was going in the water on the elephant! The driver of Ken and Daniel's elephant even got it to shoot water out of its trunk at us on command! Throughout the ride the three elephants changed positions so we could get different views of each other and have a turn being the leader of the trail ride. At one point, our guide even got down from the elephant and took pictures of us. While riding, he would periodically stop to let our elephant snack on the foliage along the trail.
When our ride ended, we got the chance to see a baby elephant that had just been born in late December - it was so cute! I got to feed the mama elephant a basket of sugar cane which she seemed to enjoy quite a lot. I was amazed at how strong her trunk was and how much sugar cane she tried to stuff into her mouth at once. It was a little strange to view elephants in captivity giving trail rides to people and at first I felt a little sorry for them. But they seemed to be treated very well and as Ken pointed out, it's better than doing hard labor which is what many of them used to do. All in all, it was a great day for an elephant trail ride and I would happily do it again.
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