Elephant trekking! This is the day the Schmid family has been talking about since we booked the trip. Hailey's been telling everyone she knows (and doesn't know) that she gets to ride on an elephant. After a lazy morning of reading and sipping some much needed coffee, we headed off.
We got picked up from our bungalow around 10:30 and took a 30ish-minute ride to the elephant camp. Once we arrived we were ushered to some benches where we ate some fresh pineapple while waiting for the previous group to finish up.
He's so hot!
After our refreshments we were guided to some stairs so we could get on our elephant. Originally I thought our entire family would be on one elephant but apparently we are all too heavy so TJ and Lilah had one and Hailey and I had another. It worked out perfectly though. I think it would have been too crowded with all of us on one.
The guide took a picture of his elephants behind! I thought it was cute though.
The first 20 minutes or so Hailey and I sat on some seats that were hooked to the back of the elephant, but then the guide asked if we wanted to sit on the elephant's neck for the remainder of the ride. Of course we wanted to! The guides took us through the jungle where it looked like Tarzan lived. We didn't see monkeys or anything like that but we saw lot's of neat birds and some wild chickens. The the whole ride was full of giggles, cute 4 year old questions, Lilah snores and declarations from Hailey that this was the "best day of my life!" I was a little sore because the elephant kept smacking it's sandpapery ears on my bare knees but it's the price I'll pay for riding an elephant.
TJ's elephant kept pooping! The bigger the animal the bigger the poop, and the bigger the poop, the bigger the poopchute...it was so funny! The look on Hailey's face was priceless.
It was everything and more than what we imagined it being. Here are some of the things Hailey said during the Elephant ride..
"those ears look like butterfly wings"
"Um...ew...that elephant is pooping"
"Daddy! I'm naming my elephant Dora. Do you like it?"
"Is my elephant a boy or a girl?"
"What language does it speak?"
"It's just like Bumby!"
"I don't ever want to get off."
We were able to chit chat and interact with our guides and elephants after the ride. We even tipped the guide by giving the money to the elephant and she handed it to her trainer. It was quite a cool trick.
I got some elephant kisses
She posed for the picture!
The rocking put Lilah to sleep. He's such a good daddy!
After we got off and said hello to our guides and elephants were asked if we wanted to take the elephants for a swim in a water hole so they could cool off and be brushed. It was about a 10 minute walk from the elephant camp. We hadn't planed on getting wet so we weren't in our bathing suits. Hailey could have cared less, but TJ and I really didn't want to get in the gross muddy water with a gross muddy elephant. But I am the awesomest mommy in the world according to Hailey, so I sucked it up and got in the water. The worst part about this was as I was climbing in, one of the elephants pooped!! I was horrified! I was bathing in elephant dung! The things I do for my kid...
Because Hailey was the only kid in this trip, they asked her if she wanted to ride the elephant back up to camp again. She's one lucky little girl! She got not one but two elephant rides in one day! You know how all little girls go through a horse phase? I think Hailey'll bypass that all together and move on to elephants.
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