Tom, Si and I were joined by Kenny and Nicola and set off with 'Jumbo Trekkers' for an hour or so drive in the back of a pick up. Along the bumpy potholed roads emerging, a little green from the ride, to an elephant reserve in the heart of the Chang Mai countryside.
We got changed into our elephant rider clothes. Which were thick pink three quarter length trousers and a sleeveless top, which gave us all cracking 'v' tan lines front and back. We then learnt and practiced the elephant commands before being introduced to our elephants.
Mine was named Mamou, she was big, grey and loved the bananas!
I climbed aboard and we set off for a hike around the paddock before going a bit further afield to the nature reserve. The elephants were really well looked after and it was really good fun tramping through the outskirts of the jungle on Mamou.
Like her rider, Mamou was not past a bit of mischief. She seemed to take great pleasure in pooing in the face of Tom and Si's elephant and also wouldn't bow down to let me off so I had to jump off her head from full hight.
We then washed our elephants in the river, unfortunately when a really fun water fight kicked off Mamou decided to see what our bags tasted like and my guide man was off having a fag! So I had to try and stop her. In hind sight I wish I could have seen me try, seen me trying to push a full grown elephant away would be quite a sight!
After our wash we climbed back on and marched along the river bank to the base camp.
We then had some lovely Thai food for lunch before going for a jungle hike finishing at a waterfall. Here we had a great time, after climbing up the side of the waterfall I sat at the peak of the cascade, folded my arms and legs in, and allowed the power of the water to push me off the rock face, I zoomed down the fall and into a deep cool pool of water beneath a canopy of trees. Fantastic.
After we had done In the pools around the waterfall we walked a short distance to the river and went white water rafting! Hard hats on, paddles in hand and we were good to go. Well after our captain had finished a traffic cone sized spiff that is!
We shot down the river in Olympic speed and then transferred onto wooden rafts and finished off with a chilled out punt down the river on the bamboo rafts.
We then hopped in to the back of the pick up truck and drove home, stopping at a village on the way back.
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