Hi Everyone I have had a very exciting day today in Kuala Gandah at the elephant sanctuary- it was brilliant! We drove a couple of hours from KL stopping at 11am for lunch ( breakfast for Claire and I) which was a variety of curried meats- yum yum for brekkie! Lots of different Malay dishes followed by some amazing fruits- which we pinched a bag of......can't shake that student habit of scrounging free food! I'm not usually up for a curry first thing, but i have to admit our first real sample of traditional Malay food was delicious so i'll def be up for more of that- although we did see a rat running past the hobs of one of the food stalls.......not my preferred restaurant guest!! It was so hot today but at long last we had sunshine and blue skies- so it was perfect for playing in the river with the elephants! They had these 2 tiny baby elephants which were only a year old and they were so cute and playful! We watched all the elephants get washed down and then were allowed to feed them various fruits. You could either hand it to their trunk, or hold it in the air and they arch their head back so you put in in their mouth- but they always close with your hand still in it and you have to tug it out- they don't have front teeth so its just very squiggy and gummy! It was really good fun- and we got lots of pics! Then we got to take a ride round on the elephant- it was only a quick lap of the field because their were so many but it was still pretty cool- you sway a lot more than i thought and they are a lot more boney on their backs than i expected too. Then they were all taken to the river and you could ride on their back and then collapse into the water with them- Claire and I chose to play and splash about with the babies instead which was brilliant, the babies still had fluffy hair and were really vocal!! It was such a great day- but its actually really frustrating because the sanctuary is relocating elephants from areas which are now plantations so they don't destroy the crops, but the sanctuary is so small and under funded that they have to do only a couple of elephants at one time and so the herds get split up and the stress of the 20hour truck and boat journey to the national park is often too much and the elephants die. So its either stay in a shrinking habitat and risk being shot by farmers or be moved to somewhere and if you survive end up being stuck on your own. Back in KL tonight and Claire and i took a mooch round Petaling Market in Chinatown. It was a lot of desingner rip off hand bags and t shirts and watches- and a lot of strange dried meat and plenty of yummy fruit, not quite Spitalfield!! Tomorrow we're planning a cultural day visiting some of the Mosques and Temples and we're still planning our next stop- possible Cameron HIghlands or possible a nice Island- try our second attempt at finding paradise!! I'll keep you posted! tasha xx