Day 11 - Elephant Trek - Downhill - On an Elephant - By Crosby

OK, I was nervous to say the least about the uphill trek as I had been informed that elephants tended to be introduced in to this section of the trek due to the incredibly difficult terrain! However, we soon found our pace and were constantly entertained by the mud sliding efforts of Steph, Hollie and Pok – who at one point looked like some kind of international ice-skater performing the most amazingly flexible manoeuvres just to stay upright – needless to say it didn’t work and he ended up on his back more than once!

After a few hours of hilarity, it was our turn to take a ride on the elephants. I had been building this up in my mind as some sort of luxury Disney ride with a wonderfully comfortable sofa like seat and maybe a G&T? Mrs Kirk’s description of actually getting on the elephant was absolutely right…..I don’t think I have ever felt less dignified! It’s always quite embarrassing when it takes twice as many porters to push you up into the ‘seat’ than anyone else! Anyway, Laura and I set off for a few hours of comfort after a hard morning.

I don’t think that I had actually engaged brain for long enough to consider what this would feel like. The ground was very soft due to the torrential rain and the elephants were slipping around all over the place. I had spent the morning working on my leg muscles and it became clear very quickly that the downward journey would balance out my morning workout with some focus on my core and upper body strength! This was not some twisted excuse to fit a workout into our trip (most of the girls would happily tell you that my priorities lay elsewhere!) but was actually essential to ensure that you didn’t fall out of the bamboo basket masquerading as a seat! It was a very steep descent and I started to feel very guilty about electing to walk up hill – it must have been nearly impossible to walk down this section without falling over every other step – in fact one of the smaller elephants did fall over and lost his mahout, leaving the girls to fend for themselves momentarily!

There were a few clearings during the descent and the views were beautiful – it was amazing to see how far up we had walked. The ride was much more exciting than I thought it was going to be but the only downfall was the mosquito’s – I was eaten alive this afternoon and they seemed particularly interested in my face!! After what felt like months and feeling horribly guilty that I was very ready to get off after looking forward to the ride, we arrived at the bottom and waited for the walkers to catch us up. We then caught our ‘dinky’ transfer to the van which would take us back to the ‘resort’……but not before a quick bath in the river! Another excellent day!