hello! had a very fun day today, set off for the elephant village at 10am. it cost 500 baht to ride on elephant and two people were on one at once. i went on with tom and cruised around the road for about 20 minutes. it was very bumpy as we got an extra big elephant haha everytime the elephant walked you'd kinda be tilted to the left and right. our elephant was hardcore and overtook two other elephants. im not sure whether i enjoyed the ride or not as i kept thinking about whether its cruel for the elephants to have a big metal rack on their back with 3 people. and then forced to walk round and round everyday. also the guide who sits on the elephants neck carries a really sharp axe which they hammer down at the elephant if it misbehaves or anything. it was quite unpleasant...

after the ride we looked in a gift shop where i brought some gifts for people back home :) they also sold some lumps of elephant dung with gold leaves on them.lol very strange. we then had dinner at a nice restaurant with thai style seats, so we were sat on cushion things on the floor. i had chicken and oyster sauce, it was very tasty but very small portion!

then we cruised over to the buddha temple where you climb up alot of stairs and then walk around this shrine 3 times and pay your respect towards your buddha. it was fun but very very hot! i then went to the shop and brought 2 more bags! my 7th one.its very nice though :)

after the temple we went to another elephant village where we watched people performing acrobats on the elephants and the elephants did tricks. the people were like standing on one leg and stuff and running over the elephants and jumping. like before i don't think i enjoyed that as again it felt cruel. the elephants were chained and the things they were made to do just seemed unnatural. e.g someone would do a drum roll and at a particular bit on the drum roll the elephant would have to lift its leg up, hold it for few seconds etc. i think the reason why they were training the elephants is because its the thai kings birthday in december, and in thailand elephants are seen as the elephant of the king. so the elephants were trained ready for a celebration show.

we then walked over to the baby elephant and its mum where we could feed it. on the way to the river there were more elephants which i fed. you'll crushed some huge bamboo sticks into half and then give them to it, they'd take it from you using their trunk it was so fun! The elephants were bathed in the river and we watched, i got slightly sprayed by the elephants lol.

it was then time to go but i was having so much fun feeding the elephants. they are amazing animals! we were told to leave about ten times before we actually did. going to the elephant village has made me want to do some more voluntary with them, so im going to ask our leader if thats possible. i just think they are just beautiful creatures.

we had tea on a boat and cruised around for a couple of hours on water. a girl from my room has a severe allergy to nuts, chili's and peppers and she must have accidently had some as she suddenly got into anaphylactic shock and it was very scary! we quickly turned the boat around and she was taken to hospital. it was very lucky that we had just set off and the hospital was near. as if we were far from dock she would probably have died, as she only had one adrenaline stick with her :O i spoke to her when we got back and she was fine but feeling quite emotional. she said that the people at the hospital didn't understand what was happening and that she had to tell them what drugs she needed and where to inject. i think she was very lucky.

On the boat, we sang some karaoke and then came back to shore an made a hour journey back to the eco house. back at the eco house i chilled for a bit then went to the bar. we then just chilled and talked till about half 6. the workers at the eco house were just getting up...