Elephant Ride in Thailand

This is our taxi ride to go on our Elephant riding trek. We were the first to be picked up and by the time we got there it was full.  

city road in Phuket. 

This was a beautiful area. 

More Elephant topiary. 

When we got there we got to watch them fasten up the seats on the elephants. It was amazing to me to watch the driver fasten the chair atop the elephant. The driver never once got off the elephant. He would drop the ropes down and the elephants would use her trunk to move the rope into place. 

Likewise with the back he would drop the rope and the elephant would put her leg through the loop. 

An elephant has to be 10 years old before it can have riders. 

This was adorable. This daddy brought his daughter to work today. 

Our new friends Greg and Karen Blatch. 

They are from Australia and they were a lot of fun to hang out with for part of the day. 

Joanna watched a couple of the drivers fight over who got to take her and I. We were the only single girls on the trek. They all wanted us to go with them.  Our driver was the best. He spoke English really well and he was funny. He kept us entertained. 

Karen and Greg's elephant got hungry so their driver had to get down and go get some tree branches for her to munch on. When he got back he got the elephant to help him climb back up. Look close and  you can see the front leg bent down. 

When he was back on and ready to go we were off again. 

Joanna and I enjoying our ride. 

A little part of a village we passed by on our trek. 

This is when the drivers stop and let us enjoy the scenic view and try to sell us hand made bracelets and necklaces. 

Say cheese Greg and Karen!!!

A lady scrubbing away on laundry. 

A poor sick monkey.

An elephant will eat between 600-700 pounds of food a day 

and spend about 16 hours a day eating. 

Then our driver asked if Joanna wanted to drive she said no. He turned and asked me and I said yes. So he climbed over and I climbed under and we swapped spots. I think he had the hots for Joanna and was excited when I wanted to drive so he could have some alone time with her on the back of the elephant. 

Yes I was excited that I was on the head of the elephant and spent about the last 10-15 minutes of the trek there. 

Coming in to unload. Then I asked our driver if we could take one more loop around so he said sure thing. 

So off we went again. 

Joanna got another picture of Greg and Karen coming in to unload. 

We are heading back to the loading deck. 

What a great experience. My favorite part of my entire trip (beside of course, seeing Joanna) was the elephant ride. 

When we were done with our ride I went to have a chat with Curious George. 

I shook his hand.

Then George wanted to sit on my lap. 

I asked if he would sit on Joanna's lap too and so he did. 

Then we went to say hi to the baby Elephant. 

We fed her a few baby bananas. 

Look she is smiling. I love this picture, the baby is so adorable. 

Karen fed the last baby miniature banana to the guy who runs the trek place.  

Here is an interesting fact about Elephants. 

Did you know they are extremely hairy? 

I always thought they had rough skin but they are not. They have a lot of hair and it is about an inch long. The hair is soft. Elephants are an intelligent species and I really enjoyed my time with them. 

Phuket Thailand site seeing

Karon View Point

Sea Hawks

I loved the bright red bush with the view of the ocean in the background. 

We were able to see Big Buddha from the view point. 

The Male elephant of the heard. Look at those tusks. 

We went to an orchid garden.  

They were very pretty. 

Chained Parrot

Chained Monkey

This is at Big Buddha, it is hard to see but if you look close along the edge of the roof you will see bells hanging, lots of them. They will hang a bell for good luck. 

These were some really cool benches. I took pictures of the benches for my dad. Because I thought he would really like them. I could see him someday making some like this. 

Joanna and I in front of Big Buddha. 

A Shrine

A worship center. Off to the right is a monk blessing people. 

Terrace garden area.

A scenic view of the surroundings. 

Thai Temples

Beautiful buildings. 

I was able to go in and it was very colorful and you could tell that there was a lot of history and stories being told through the murals on the walls. 

The banister is the body of the dragon. I thought it was a very clever idea.  

Lovely landscaping down below in a garden out back of the Temples. I think this is a hidden place. There were no people back here and I don't think most know it is there. 

View of the Temple grounds. 

The landscaping here was most delightful. 

Another thing they do for luck is take a white tulip and putting it here and say a prayer. 

The funny thing is I saw a lady go and collect the flowers and take them back to the shop to resell them. Talk about making the most of your buck.  

A monk worship center. 

The next stop was to a cashew factory. This was a fascinating place. 

I had no idea how cashews grew. I didn't realize they were part of a fruit. 

That is the cashew on the bottom of that yellow fruit. 

They have to shell the cashews one by one by hand and this blue machine. 

It is a tedious process. 

They had all kinds of flavors, butter, roasted, candy, salted, sesame, garlic, chocolate, chili, honey, honey sesame, tum yum, black pepper, coffee, curry fried, and Thai Herd. 

The next stop was the honey factory. 

I was excited that I finally saw bananas on the banana trees. 

They had all sorts of fun things in their honey shop. They had honey vinegar, honey chocolate covered fruits and a ton of other fun stuff I just can't remember all of it. 

We also stopped off at the pearl shop. Pearls are native to the area so both Joanna and I were able to get a pearl piece of jewelry for cheaper than it would cost us in the states. We had a fun time seeing all the different sites of the area. There was a whole lot more that we could have done given more time. I really enjoyed the main land at Phuket much more than the Island.