Amazing Elephants

Sunday was elephant day.  Ra drove us to a Phnong village near to the nature lodge.  Phnong is one of the minority tribes in Cambodia.  There, we were introduced to Mr Hong, who was to look after us on our elephant trek. We were also to have dinner afterwards with him and his family in his traditional Phnong house.

Here is Mr Hong's house

And here he is in the white shirt supervising preparations

Mr Hong speaks good English and has a great sense of humour.  His claim to fame is teaching Gordon Ramsay to be a Mahout.  You can see a short clip of this after the bee bit in the link below. There might be more somewhere.

http://youtu.be/QniTN5gPAA8

Our elephant was a fine fellow called Ramkin.  Here he is being made ready.

Before we set off we fed him some bananas so that he'd be a happy elephant.  He was much more obedient than the other one carrying a Belgian couple which didn't get any bananas.  Here's Claire feeding Ramkin bananas.

Then you get on, via a useful tower.

We both sat in the basket on top with Mr Hong on the elephants neck.  He showed us how he uses his feet behind the elephant's ears to make it go left, right, straight on and backwards.  There were also calls they used and a stick and string implement.

We trekked for about two hours.  The elephants are extremely elegant in their movements and it is excellent being high up walking through the forest.  It was rather cramped in the basket with two people though and I think we were all grateful when we got to the lunch spot by a river.  Here we also met up with another party.

After a rest for lunch, the best bit.  We got to swim with the elephants and wash them.  This was fantastic.  The elephants really seem to like the water and letting you climb on them and jump off.  It was also lovely to cool down on a very hot day.  Here's Claire and me on one of the elephants.

And here's Claire falling off.

I managed to stay on and ride him out.

Then the other elephants arrived and we all dived back in.

After all this galavanting, we saddled back up and trekked back to the village.  For the last bit, I moved up to ride on the neck, which was a lot more comfortable although slightly more scary on the ups and downs.

After saying goodbye to the elephants, Claire, Ra and I had dinner with Mr Hong, his wife, six children and mother-in-law in the house in the first picture.  There are two platforms inside, down the length of the house with an earth floor channel in the middle.  One platform is used for sleeping and the other for sitting and eating.  There is a fire in the middle of the floor for cooking.  Having the fire inside stops the wind getting at it and keeps the insects out.  There was also a constant traffic of animals coming in and out: cats, chickens and the cutest piglets you've ever seen.  The food was delicious, there was a mixture of pork and aubergine cooked in a bamboo, barbecued pork, a stir fry of pork with vegetables, and of course rice.

All in all, a brilliant day and we drove back to our bungalow on the Nature Lodge very happy and in love with elephants.