Elephant Ride in Thailand

Sandy and I wished to visit some villages in northern Thailand and discovered the only way to get into the most interesting ones was to ride an elephant 3 hours into the jungle, then over the mountains. After contacting a Karen tribesman, reserving an elephant and agreeing on a price, we climbed the stairs and stood on the platform. Fear gripped us as we noticed the giant step onto the head of our elephant. We quickly balanced to keep from falling off and settled in for an adventure.

Getting onto the elephant was terrifying but once on it...here's what we discovered...we both had to sit on a rather small board with a 3" standup border. Thai people are TINY but both of our butts would NOT fit in the 3 sided box. Each of us sat the whole time with one leg thrown over the side of the box and half our butt inside the box. As we started out of the Karen village, we agreed the gait of the elephant was soothing and we relaxed into the scenes of village life.

Soon we began to climb, higher and higher into the mountains. The elephant followed a VERY narrow trail the width of one elephant foot and the ground was wet and snot slippery. We discovered quickly that we had nothing to hold onto but the board we were sitting on. Doesn't sound so bad until you know that the mountain trail was VERY steep! We put our hands between our legs and tried to hold onto the board that served as our seat. We were thrown back, looking at the clouds and trying to hold tight to keep from falling backward. This travel method seemed AWFUL until we reached the top of that mountain and began to go DOWN the other side. We were truly terrified and tried to find something to hold onto as we were thrust DOWNWARD. We looked passed the mahout and elephant's head at the ground and grabbed onto the 3" back of our sitting board. Our muscles, not used to this position, began to quiver and we quickly lost our sense of humor. Concentrating on the interesting ears of the elephant helped as they had tons of veins and hairs. Some parts of those ears were even transparent.

Our mahout was sitting on the elephant's head...chain SMOKING. The smoke drifting up to us no matter which direction the breeze was blowing. At one point, the mahout, who spoke NO English, began singing, "Silent Night", in ENGLISH...it was, after all, December. We cracked up despite the difficulty of holding on and not sliding right off the elephant's head.

At one point in the scary journey, we heard a thud and noticed that Sandy's purse had slid off the elephant and into the jungle...we had a hard time getting the mahout to understand what had happened and to stop the elephant and retrieve the purse.

After arriving in the first village, we realized how worthwhile the trip had been. In each village, the natives wore the most outrageously beautiful costumes. This particular dress was for every day, working in the fields, cooking all the meals, sweeping the always strewn dirt road, etc.

After much visiting and gesturing, we were invited into a home. A local jeweler brought out his silver jewelry to assess our interest in purchasing. In one home, we were invited to "sit down" with the family in their small hut. They graciously offered me a very low, very tiny, 3 legged stool. After I managed to get down to the stool, my butt hung over on all sides. I started to giggle, they started to giggle, and eventually we were all laughing together over the ridiculous seating arrangements. Most of the villagers were as tall as my waist or my boobs...tiny compared to me. They were all warm, loving, open, and willing to share their lives with us while unable to communicate language. Our visits to these hill tribes of Thailand etched amazing memories into our hearts forever.