Smelling of Elephant packs a funk..

Woken at 7 again this morning to go Elephant washing; we just had to take a swimsuit, camera and grim determination.

It was a bit rainy and chilly what with it only being about 25 degrees...(had to turn the aircon off last night, FAR too cold) and went off in the pick up to meet some very dirty elephants!

With mud splidging rather pleasantly between my toes, and dodging the floaty pooo as much as possible I mounted my elephant and got scrubbing.

Once you got the hang of it’s like a slow underwater bristley bucking bronco... but with more scrubbing. My elephant was particularly filthy and kept going right underwater, trumpeting and squirting lots of water around, and despite the water being very muddy and full of elephant poo we got them cleaner, and ourselves considerably dirtier.

(My legs are now covered in a wierd rash... don't know if this is from elephant bristliness, nibbles from water creatures, bedbugs from last night or something even more sinister. Will have to see if it goes away when I get back to Bangkok)

Back for very thorough showers (as much as one could in aforementioned conditions) but still not quite managing to get rid of the elephanty smell..perhaps it was just IN my nose..) before a tranquil bamboo raft session down the river.

It was ok, (we were "entertained" by one of the raft rowers throwing himself into the water and pretending to wrestle with an anaconda) but I was completely distracted by the bloke in front of me who had the biggest blackhead I have EVER seen right in front of my face!! I swear it was about 2-3mm across. I could barely tear my eyes away from it and therefore missed any possible interesting sites along the river.

Not sure if publishing this is a gross invasion of his privacy, but I just don't care - look at the size of it!! It was definitely not some kind of strange mole, believe me, I had enough time to examine and contemplate this... it was definitely a blackhead, possibly the biggest in the world, and the world should know. And then I thought, what if it isn't? What if there are blackheads in the world bigger than this? Should I send the photo to Guiness?

Anyway... sorry about that. Moving on....

The raft trip ended with them dropping us off on the wrong side of the river which and necessitated a walk across a very very scary looking wooden bridge with rusty suspnsion wires and frayed ropes.

Seriously not out of place in Indiana Jones; it had big gaps in some places, planks replaced with branches in others, haphazardly nailed together all the way along. Still, I kept telling myself it wasn’t that far to fall if it did give way... Here I am feeling rather pleased with myself having crossed it.

Next we went on an elephant trek through the jungle, but compared to washing them up close and personal this morning, pah! It was rubbish!!

Our little Mahoot was quite funny though, climbing all over the elephant like a monkey. The sun came out though, which was nice. And I got a nice chap from Brazil to come with me which was nice. It was hot, and the elephants were tired...

Loved this pic of this big old chap leaning on the wooden fence with his trunk lolling and eyes drooping whilst waiting his turn for a cooling shower and lunch.

After lunch and saying goodbye to all my new rafting friends and the blackhead and then it was a long minibus trip back to Bangkok, (most of which was getting back across Bangkok in rush hour, just like London!)

So, after surviving the dangers of tigers, elephants, bamboo rafting, water snakes, wild monkeys, nibbly fish, waterfalls and dangerous bridges, I had to stop on the way back to go to the loo in a very grotty garage and slipped over on the horrid wet floor, smacked my head on the wall, bruised my bottom, got a blood blister on my hand, and smelt of wee for the last hour of the trip.

My inner thighs are also incredibly stiff wth all the elephant gripping.