Thailand: Elephants!

When we decided to travel to Thailand, I was so incredibly excited to ride an elephant!  It was the one thing that I just HAD to do!  So, we started looking for tours on Day 2 to make sure we didn't miss out.  Ryan worked his bargaining magic and got the price cut in half - 900 THB (about $30) for all of us!

When we arrived at the "jungle" (really just a hilly, rocky wooded area overlooking the water), we were able to feed a baby elephant and get our picture taken with it.  I was amazed how the elephant could peel a banana with it's trunk, eating the banana and throwing the peel on the ground!  Ava wasn't a big fan of the elephant, she was scared of the trunk, so we weren't sure how she was going to do on the ride.  But, we climbed the rickety 2 story deck and waited our turn.  She was a little apprehensive when we first got on the elephant, but it didn't take long before she was just saying "elephant" and pointing all around with a big smile!  Needless to say, she did great - until the elephant posed for a picture with his trunk up in the air (see the last picture)!  She got as close to me as possible and wouldn't keep her eyes off the elephant!

Overall, a very cool experience and I'm glad we did it!



ok, the elephant's trunk freaked me out a bit too! :)