Today was a play day. Ruth arranged for us along with two other new friends to take a longtail boat ride up the river to a village where we could ride elephants. The longtail boat ride was beautiful, it took about an hour past farms, mansions, shacks, jungle and gravel operations (two guys digging gravel off the bottom of the river and piling it in their longtail boat until it almost sunk). It was a very hot, heavy day today so the breeze during the boat ride felt fantastic.
The village was oriented to tourism with small shops selling trinkets; cloth, jewelry and puppets and especially elephant rides. The ride took about an hour through the village and jungle. As you can see in the pictures, Megan and Cindy rode one elephant, Dan and Lindsey rode another and our friends rode a third. Megan and Cindy's guide could speak English and was very interesting to talk with. He allowed them to ride on the neck of the elephant, not just up in the seat. It was great, riding on the neck was a relatively smooth ride, up in the seat you rock back and forth alot, but it's warm sitting on the neck and those big ears act as blankets, very unnecessary in the heat today! Dan and Lindsey's elephant kept stopping to eat, pulling up large branches, and once
an entire small banana tree!
Riding elephants!
Cindy and Megan got to 'drive'!
Similar to the boat we rode in, these guys are collecting gravel from the river bed to sell.
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