Trip to Thailand, January 2013
Pat and I used George’s Blackberry to try to look up an elephant-riding place nearby, and I read that Elephant Sanctuary was a good, ethical place—they treat the elephants well, don’t force them to be ridden or to “dance,” etc. Pat got on the phone with them and got some directions and we set out, but again we got a bit lost. We found ourselves at the train station, where George suddenly switched into macho American man mode and hopped out of the car to “see about” this himself. Meanwhile Pat talked to a cabbie who found us a lovely female motorcycle taxi driver who said she’d drive ahead of us there for 40 baht. We agreed, but George was scrutinizing maps and refusing to comply. Ultimately we ended up at Elephant Village (there was also an Elephant World, and the three similarly-named places seemed to not help our directions issue), which was probably neither the best nor the worst of elephant places, overall. I closed my mind to that, though, knowing that Robert really wanted Marcus to ride an elephant and this was basically our last opportunity.
At the elephants, George and Pat stayed in the car and kicked back and relaxed while I took the kids out. I think the whole road trip with two kids thing was a bit more intense than they’d bargained for initially, and they were realizing they had to be back at work on Saturday morning and hadn’t had any actual restful vacation time yet. So I stuck Samantha on my back in the elephant-printed carrier I had had made for the trip and booked us a half-hour elephant trek up a mountain to a scenic overlook and then back down.
We boarded the elephant, and the staff was very skeptical about Samantha on my back, suddenly breaking into a chorus of “baby sit, sit, sit!” when they realized I was in fact getting on with her still back there. I just ignored them, taking a page from George’s book, since I couldn’t see how having a wriggling one-year-old “sitting” on my lap would actually help this experience, and eventually they gave up and shrugged.
The elephant technically had a seatbelt, but it was missing some plastic teeth and it didn’t actually buckle. I looked down at my lap twice, twice saw it was wide open, and in a panic twice re-“buckled” it, before deciding the safest thing to do was just not to look down again. If I sat right in the middle of the seat and stretched my arms I could brace myself side to side, and Marcus, sitting on my right, could clutch my leg with both arms. As we started climbing up the mountain, on the swaying from side-to-side elephant, I started wondering what I’d gotten myself into. Thankfully Marcus got extremely nervous, too, and when we were climbing the mountain and were nearly perpendicular to the ground, me praying silently while saying “OH BOY! ISN’T THIS GREAT? HOW EXCITING!” in a cheerful voice, he said, “Mommy, I’m all done with the elephant now and I want to go back.” Our mahout understood the words “go back,” and once I confirmed this, he had the elephant make some sort of K-turn on the narrow path and begin our descent. By this point, Samantha had fallen asleep on my back, with the swaying motion of the elephant lulling her to sleep, and we all survived the steep descent. Our elephant walked through a little lake or stream, and then we happily dismounted.
Terrifying elephant ride.
Marcus then got some baby bananas to feed to a baby elephant who was standing off on the side under a small hut, and he was very brave and actually reached close to the elephant. Samantha clutched a banana and wouldn’t let go.
Approaching the baby elephant and thinking about feeding her some baby bananas.
Successful feeding!
Not giving up her baby banana. Forget the elephant.
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Created: 1/15/13. Last Modified: 1/15/13.