Thailand: Elephants and Monkeys and Snakes

Yesterday was spent riding an elephant through the forest. It was amazing how HUGE of an animal an elephant is. You don’t realize how big it is until you get on its back and you are like 15 feet in the air feeling the sway of the animal and feeling the muscles move on its back. We climbed mountains and walked through rivers. I rode on its back half the time and then rode right on top of its head the second half. After that we took a ride on a bamboo raft down the river and I even helped by standing up and steering the raft by sticking a long piece of bamboo into the riverfloor.

Today was a free day for us so I decided to spend the day by myself. I hired a private car for the day ($7) and they took me all around to 3 different places. First we went to the Orchid farm which was free. Next he took me to the Snake Farm ($5) which not only had snakes but birds and reptiles too. I took a picture with 3 locals and a huge snake slithering on my shoulders! After that we went to the MONKEY FARM! I was playing with a monkey for a while, she was climbing on my arm and biting my fingers with her little teeth and holding my hand. Its amazing how human like monkeys are with their little toes and fingers. I got a lot of pictures with me and my monkey too. I will try to upload some pictures to the internet soon.

Just to give you an idea of how inexpensive things are here, they are about 5 or 10 times cheaper then in the US. I had lunch (pa tai noodles and meat with a bottle of soda) for less then $1. A taxi across town is $1. To use the internet for one hour is $1. A train ride half way across the country is $10. A guesthouse is usually $10 a night, $15 with A/C. A Thai Massage for one hour is $5. A foot massage for 1/2 hour is $1.50. Its so inexpensive here and supposedly Cambodia is half the cost. The most expensive thing is the airplane ticket here.