Hi everyone! Today I had the best day of my entire life, think the other girls might well agree. We booked the mahout training course and went today, early start at 7.30am we were picked up and taken out into the hills. The idea is that you own the elephant for the day, and you have to make friends with them because they wont let you ride them bareback unless they love you back. You spend the entire day caring for them exactly like a mahout does, cleaning them, washing and feeding them, exercising them etc. It was absolutely incredible, I think today was the first time I've ever cried tears of pure joy. The guy who runs the place is amazing, he gave us a whole history/economy/ecology lesson and i learned so much! We got changed into mahout outfits and then they matched us individually to an elephant. They then taught us how to track and approach our elephants in the bush, how to check they were healthy and how to make friends with them (by feeding them an entire basket of bananas) My elephant was a girl called Memei. After we checked they were healthy (by inspecting their skin, teeth, sweat glands and poos) we were taught the thai commands the mahouts use to get the elephants to follow them-it was amazing, I just said the word and this 1 tonne animal did what i told her! They also teach you how to control the elephant with your feet and more word commands, like, forward, stop, well done, sit down, stand up etc. Then they showed us the different methods to climb the elephant, I went up and over the trunk, wait til you see the video its hilarious. Once your aboard, you take your elephant to the river to wash it and a huge water fight ensues, then you get back on and trek up into the jungle for an hour-no path, no road, no trail just jungle! So awesome! Then you get to a waterfall where you have a picnic and swim and share your lunch with your elephant before another wash in the waterfall then trek home. A thunder storm started on our way home, so we got utterly soaked and the baby elephant kept coming under our rain shelter cuz he didnt want to get wet! Once home, we dried off, had a drink and then they taught us advanced sitting techniques where you sit on the elephant's head with your feet dangling down over their forehead and go for one last hike before saying goodbye. No gimmicks, no putting the animals on show or making them do tricks, just healthy happy rescued animals living peacefully and doing only what they want. It was amazing, i wish you all could have been here. Im definitely coming back. Definitely. The guy is staying in touch with us via email and we get the free professional photographs and videos tomorrow. Would love to give you all more detail, but too exhausted, emothionally and physically, taking care of an elephant is tough!!! You'll have to wait til we get home!
love to everyone