Riding an elephant isn't the most comfortable activity in the world. For one thing, I was actually sitting on a platform seat attached to the elephants back while the Thai elephant trainer sat on top of the elephants head. My legs were too long to rest on the elephants back so I had to sit awkwardly with my torso twisted so that my feet could rest by the elephants side. Also, my elephant was a bit of a rebel and tended to wander away from the group to stare at butterflies or ravenously attack bushes when hungry. I learned that elephants eat bananas like they are peanuts, so when we bought a bag of bananas for 20 baht, little did we know that we would had an empty bag and an elephant trunk probing the air around us persistently in a matter of seconds. The ride through the hilltops of Mae Wang, a rural area of rice fields and forests about 45 minutes from Chiang Mai, was really beautiful, and being in the fresh clean air after a month of being in the dirty city of Bangkok was a treat in itself.
I can't say that I would ever get on an elephants back again, just because it felt a bit sad and degrading to be sitting like a lazy log on such a beautiful and proud-looking animal being forced to parade me around. However, I'm glad to have done it. The view from up there is spectacular, and there is something very enchanting about sitting atop such a regal creature.
The rest of my day after the elephant riding was really fun and I'll have more photos to post of that soon!
