Elephant Riding and River Rafting

Tuesday afternoon we had an afternoon off from the Immersion schedule. My uncle C-J and his wife Jenny, a couple with lots of energy, suggested that I joined them for a three-hour tour with elephant riding as well as river rafting, and so I did.

Here's C-J and Jenny in action.

 

I knew that some of the yoga people had expressed concern over the treatment of the elephants. As far as I could see they were all right, although you never know what goes on behind the scenery. When we had finished our tour, one of our elephants was relieved from his saddle since he had made enough laps for the day, so apparently there's some attention to the regulations. The elephant keepers have sticks with a metal spike, but considering the thickness of an elephant skin, they generally couldn't do much harm. I suppose that when needed the keeper will aim for where the skin is thinner, such as behind the ears, but as far as we could see the elephant were not hurt. It is of course always questionable to tame animals and keep them in captivity.

It's mind-boggling to see a human child sitting on an elephant's head and controlling its moves. The elephant is such an impressive manifestation of force of nature, so heavy and stepping so carefully. The young elephant keeper is tiny. How many steps of evolution must have occurred before this situation, something so little in control of something so big, was made possible?

The elephants sometimes deviated from their path to get a snack from the bushes, which was allowed by their keepers to a certain extent.

 

I have no pictures from the river rafting, since we were recommended to leave the cameras in the car. Since I could not know beforehand how wild the ride was, I left mine, but C-J brought his compact camera. Jenny went so far in her precautions as to put on her bathing suit. The long and narrow bamboo raft was far from stable, and apart from us three, there was a boy with a rafting stick at the front end of the raft, to get us down alive. The guide said that I was the captain of the raft and I got to stand in the back with a stick to push us forward, but as soon as we took off it was obvious that the direction of the raft could only be controlled from the front. At least I was able to help with some speed.

The ride was mostly calm, sometimes swaying a bit more when there was more stream and tiny waterfalls. We could enjoy the shadow of the trees, and passing by locals who were sitting by the water relaxing with some beers and a guitar. One man was throwing out his fish net just as we came by, and we almost wondered if that was arranged as a part of the rafting experience. It probably wasn't.

We had lot's of fun, taking turn with the captain's stick and taking pictures of each other trying yoga postures on the raft. At the end of the ride there was a little more of a waterfall to pass, so C-J needed to get off to save his camera and Jenny and I were told to sit down. I squatted instead, which saved my Thai pants from getting all wet, since the raft was dipped a couple of decimetres down into the water. Once off the raft, we saw other tourists with wet clothes up to the waistline, so if you go rafting, don't hesitate to follow Jenny's example and opt for the bathing suit.

I was happy to get my camera back, and I immediately found this nice motive.