Thailand Day 4 - An All Terrain Vehicle

Besides the white beaches, actually the beach we were staying out was called White Sand Beach, Ko Chang also boasted some thick jungle in the interior. We found any easier hike in the book up to a waterfall and decided to go. We get a ride in the pickup trucks with benches that served as the island’s taxi service. We were dropped off in the town we asked for but at about the city limits so we had to walk a ways down the road. As we walked by I noticed just how thin the strip of buildings were separating the jungle from the beach. In most places there was only one row of houses or businesses, the road that ran all along the island, and then one more rows houses, between green jungle and white sand. If there weren’t any houses the jungle would usually come down to touch the water.

We finally found the turnoff in toward the waterfall only to have to wait while the series of elephants walked leisurely across the road. On their backs were basically small benches with a couple of people riding on them and one Thai guy of riding on the elephant’s neck more or less steering. We decided we had to give this a try and signed up for a one hour ride. Peter rode alone on one, Shean and Sarah on a second, and me and Ken on the third. Me and Ken’s elephant was the only male one I saw around with big white tusks. In Asian elephants only the males have tasks. Our elephant also was sporting a big chain around the top of his neck that was attached to his front feet. It’s hard to tell exactly what it was for since it wasn’t particularly tight, but I think it was to stop him from breaking out into a run.

Before you feel too bad for the elephant he apparently had it pretty good as there is something of a glut of elephants in Thailand ever since the government banned logging where elephants were used to be pull logs around. Leaving aside questions about how a country has so many elephants they use them as 4x4s these elephants just pretty much more go around a circle few times a day. The elephant wrangler riding it in front of me was constantly talking to it and urging it onwards. The path we walked over went up and down the small hills shaking us around pretty good on the elephant’s back. Sometimes the elephant would stop to do elephant stuff like eating leaves or rubbing its tusks on a nice looking tree. Sean and Sarah’s elephant even decide to take its own path at one point veering off into the underbrush.

The skin of the elephant was incredibly rough with little hairs that felt more like bristles than hairs. A lot of the point of hair is to feel stuff, but I wonder if something as tough as an elephant could feel my foot moving across its back. After walking along hills for a while we came to a stream where the elephant’s mostly submerged themselves, ours took the opportunity to blow a trunk full of water at Shean and Sarah’s elephant. When we finished the ride we walked over to a pen with a mother and baby elephant that had just then born on Christmas eve. The baby elephant was a darker color and more covered in hair. It sort of hid in between its mother’s legs so it was hard to get a photograph. We were able to feed the mother sugar cane which she stuffed it into her mouth before having really finished what she was chewing like a two ton chipmunk. The most interesting moment was when she deftly snapped one piece in half by placing it under her foot and breaking it with her trunk.

After the elephant ride we continued toward the fall. About 1/2km from them we came to the entrance to a national park and the rest of the way was a trail instead of a road. When I think of a jungle I think of a place with a lot of strange looking plants and animals of enormous size like in the movies, but most of the jungles I’ve seen just look like really dense forest. The waterfall wasn’t that big, though that could’ve been because this wasn’t the rainy season, a stream of water cascading down over several stone ledges until it formed into a pool below. We got a truck taxi back from the entrance and spent what was left of the day relaxing on the beach.

P.S.
Still problems with the pictures.