11/9/2007 @ 1000h (CNX TIME) Met Tik at the lobby at about 1000h, unfortunately, it had been raining the whole morning and we were getting worried that we might not be able to go for the elephant ride... The long stretch to the Mae Taman Elephant Camp. It is about 1hr from the city to the camp.

1130h (CNX TIME) We reached the elephant camp at about 1130h, small hiccup on the way when Aiken vomited in the car due to the winding road and a full stomach.. Luckily, it did not make too bad a mess of the car. Tik was also quite okay with it or at least appear to be...hehe..

Our first stop elephant ride... It is quite high from the ground and not exactly first class seating...but still, quite an experience.

One thing I did not expect was that we actually had to cross the river to get to the other side of the elephant trail!!! It was quite scary to look down to the river as the elephant makes it way across... With the 3 of us (me especially), we were also worried that the elephant might just collapse or fall...haha. I guess our "driver" was a bit worried also..

Along the trail, there is a total of 3 or 4 such stops whereby they will ask you to buy some bananas and sugarcane for the elephant for 30 baht. For me, I told them that I have no money left and the driver just helped to inform them that we are not buying. We wanted to buy but it was a bit hard to shift to get my wallet...hehe.. Poor elephant, but at least I bought for him when we first left the camp.

The view of the elephant camp from opposite (along the trail). There is a total of 2 elephant camps in this area with the Mae Taman camp being the older and more established one. They have a total of 40 plus elephants in the camp.

See those people on the rafts? This is another activity which you can do at the camp. However, we did not opt for this as we did not know how Aiken will like it. But he enjoyed the elephant ride though.