Wednesday 15 August 2007

Yay for elephants!

Tane and I have been staying in the small town of Luang Prabang for a few days now. Nestled in the mountains, surrounded by rivers, and heavily populated by monks, the town is like something out of a book. I love it here, it's both relaxing and facinating.

Tane and some monks hanging out on the Mekong

Luang Prabang is also surrounded by jungle, and in that jungle live lots of elephants. Laos is called Land of 1000 Elephants, and today we got to ride one of them. Yay!





Tane and I on our elephant wearing the very nifty hats that we were given to wear for a reason that we were not told.


We went on an elephant trek through the jungle for an hour or two this morning, sitting perched on the top of the elephant in a tiny seat. Our elephant was huge, bashing his way through the jungle like ele-rambo, and taking us up and down muddy embankments. At first, being on the elephant scared the ba-jezus out of me. This was just a smaller Indian elephant too - note to self, never ride an African elephant. I couldn't stop thinking about Stampy the elephant from the Simpsons that lies on his side when you say 'majumbo', and how much I would be squished if that happened.

Once I calmed down it was very fun though, a great experience. Tane loved it to, especially feeding our elephant bananas at the end.




Elephants are so cool, and far hairier than I had thought. After seeing this elephant bash his way through trees, I'd also hate to get in the way of one when they were in a bad mood. Or if the word 'majumbo' actually did make it fall on its side ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When Grisham was on one of his visits to India with his parents (when he was about three), his parents paid a mahout to let Grisham ride on an elephant. The mahout then refused to let Grisham down again until his parents had paid a huge (additional) amount of money!

Charlie House said...

That's so very cool Lauren!! We're missing you at work, but at least have fantabulous blog adventures to enjoy :-)

Tane said...

I tried offering the mahout money to leave Lauren up there, but he wouldn't take it.

Maria said...

Wow! I'd LOVE to try to ride an elephant!

It sounds as if you're having a wonderful time. I love reading your travel descriptions and just dream to get to go myself some day :)