Ask anyone on the retreat . . . the elephant ride was definitely the highlight. I don't think there will be one person that was present on that trip that wouldn't agree.
We thought we were just going out to ride the elephants. End of story. Don't get me wrong. An elephant ride in and of itself is what I was expecting, happy with and really the biggest motivating factor in getting me to Thailand.
What I didn't realize, nor did anyone else in our group for that matter, was that we were going to get to SWIM with our elephant. Holy crap! It was raining like frickin heck but the water was warm. The elephant took me up on his trunk and flung me in the water. We got to slide off his back and he even layed down on his side so we could "rest". Yup, nothing short of amazing!
Karyn got to ride up front in the "pilot" position for quite awhile on our ride. He didn't extend that invitation to me (probably because of my size) but I was happy to just be along for the ride.
We learned that the name of the elephant driver is a "mahout". We learned that elephants live to be about 70-80 years old. The mahout gets his elephant while it is a calf and trains the elephant. The elephant has the same mahout throughout his life (and throughout the life of the mahout). Each mahout managed his elephant different. Our mahout was the cutest young guy and it meant a lot more to us when we learned that this elephant was his LIFE!
I want to be a mahout.
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