Butterflies flew around in my stomach. I was sitting in a tour van on my way to the elephant camp and was unbelievable nervous. I had just recently moved to Thailand and my family and I were trying to do as many touristy adventures as we could before school started in August. Riding an elephant sounded like a great plan when I was looking at the website sitting on a couch wrapped up in my small comfort zone but now as we drove through the entrance of the elephant camp it was all becoming real. I was no longer sitting in Canada looking at a Thai website.
My family and I had decided two months in advance that we would be moving to live in Thailand to help teach English to Thai students. I was only 12 and this was a huge adventure. So we picked up our life and moved it to South East Asian.
After going down a long, fairly bumpy, dirt path the van stopped and the driver came out and pulled the door, it didn’t seem to budge so he tried again, and again, and then finally with a loud screech the door flew open. A gust of air blew in and consumed the oxygen in the van replacing it with highly polluted air. The hot air made it difficult to breathe; it was thick and tasted like smoke.
I got out of the van and started to follow the guide. We passed several cages of smaller elephant. Little baby ones. Even though they were small they still easily met my height (5’4””). I thought we would be riding them, the small elephants, and my nerves started to settle. We continued to follow the guide until we came to a 9 foot platform. The guide led us up to the top and, in broken English, told us to sit and wait for the elephant. So we sat there as if we were waiting for a bus. As I sat I wondered how we were supposed to get on those elephants from way up here. I looked over the edge. There was no way I was going to jump onto the elephant. I stood there for a little while wondering how this was going to work, and then I saw it. A monstrosity of an animal which must have towered over 12 feet tall was walking towards the platform. So those nerves that settle where now coming back at me with full force. (Now we’re talking about a Canadian girl whose closest encounter with wild life was the 25cent pony ride in front of Wal-Mart.) The elephant just kept getting bigger the closer it got to me.
Within minutes the guide was back and he kindly asked me to get onto the elephant. I laughed. Then he asked again and I realized he was serious. He grabbed a hold of my arm and helped me get onto the small bench that was attached by ropes around the belly of the elephant. In front of the bench was a large pole. It looked like I was sitting in a rollercoaster seat except I was on top of an elephant. I grabbed hold of the bar with my now shaking hands and squeezed as tight as I could so that I wouldn’t fall off. I could see the other elephant lining up behind me. Those were the elephants the rest of my family would ride. After a few minutes it started to walk and with every step I would jerk back and forth and side to side because of his fairly large hips.
About ten minutes later the rest of my family was on their elephants and we started our ride. We went up the side of a mountain and then through some jungle. I slowly started to lighten up as the ride went on. By the end I was actually enjoying myself. During my ride the “driver” was singing songs and he offered to let me “drive” a few times but I respectfully declined his offer. I’d rather live I said.
The ride was about an hour and a half long and I was off the elephant and back on flat ground within 5 minutes of getting back to the platform. It was such a fantastic memory and such a grand adventure. In the end, even though I was scared to death, it was a great experience.
Afterwards, we watched an elephant show were the elephants gave people massages, painted pictures and danced. Then, on the way home, we stopped at Tiger kingdom, got some lunch and watched the tigers as they paced around their cages. Finally, we made it back home. I do believe that was a great adventure.