Adventure Time: Thailand Edition

A few days ago was a full on Thai adventure tour. While two members of our groups opted to take a cooking class instead, another friend and I rode elephants, trekked through the jungle, ate lunch aside a waterfall, and navigated down the river rapids in a bamboo raft. Needless to say, we were not lacking any daily activities.

Our journey began around 8:30 in the morning where our tour guide, Tom, transported us from location to location. Tom offered a great inclusive deal far surpassing the pricey travel agents luring in tourists for unreasonably high fares. We first stopped at an sustainability reservation called Elephant Poo Poo Paper Park. As the name implies, the park was full of poo; however, it was in various forms. The entire establishment was both a work place, where locals were harvest cow, horse, and elephant poo and making it into paper, and a tourist attraction in its own right. Silk screens filled the reservation’s courtyard with an vivid array of paper. I was rather tempted to purchase one of their hand-made cards or notepads as a joke gift for a friend, but I was fearful, given the paper’s frailty, that it would not last the duration of the trip.

After witnessing the recycling of elephant byproducts, my travel partner and I hopped in a jeepney en route to an elephant reservation. There were six others in the jeepney and a few stuck on the roof. It was quite a diverse group with Canadian, English, Argentinian, and French travelers. Exchanging experiences with other travelers, especially those from your own country if possible, is invaluable. It provides an outlet for you to get all the details on what the best sights to see are and all the associated logistics. Also, as most know, I LOVE to talk, so meeting new people is a dream! Another person with opinions, insight, and potentially some commonalities makes the hours in a bus pass by much faster.

Let’s be honest. Who doesn’t love a good story?
I’ve learned very quickly that strangers have some of the best ones!

The elephant camp was fun. My friend and I were immediately segregated from our travel group since we were only doing a one-day elephant tour. We received a bundle of small, barely ripe bananas, climbed up a bamboo latter, and mounted the elephant. As we traversed up the mountain it became apparent that the elephant developed a learned behavior of flinging its trunk over the elephant trainer’s shoulder nearly every few steps in pursuit of two bananas. Apparently the trainers neglected to teach the elephants about portion control. We ran out of bananas nearly two-thirds of the way into the trek. It would continue to flail its trunk back towards us looking for a banana, yet neither the elephant nor the trainer spoke English. Aside from the elephant’s incessant need for bananas, guilting us in the process for not having enough, the tour was amazing.

The next portion of our day was an hour and a half long, roundtrip trek to a beautiful waterfall. The trail was not really too steep at any juncture; however, the real challenge was remaining hydrated and cool in such humid weather. After trekking for nearly forty-five minutes, we arrived at the waterfall, a much needed break. The water was so fresh and cool. I felt completely refreshed, prepared to venture back the same route we came. Prior to leaving the falls, our tour guide Tom handed out packed lunches! We all dined on pad thai at the waterfall. This made the entire trek even more worth while. The trek back was so easy after being rejuvenated that I was ready to go rafting.

As an honorary West Virginian, since WVU is my alma matar, I naturally have some experience in a raft and rapids. I am not suggesting by any means that I am a water all star or an Olympic rower, but I am fair at water sports. By fair, I mean not make a complete fool of myself given my innate lack of most physical abilities. Given my mediocre at best skills, I anticipated to heavily rely on my fellow rafters. My English counterparts were not as quite grasping the concept of rowing in unison or paddling forward and backwards. I just tried to not be that try hard in high school gym class that everyone loathes and just paddle at an average pace relative to my teammates. Towards the end of the tour, we actually managed to work in tandem, so progress was made.

After elephants, hiking, waterfalls, and rafting, I was completely exhausted. I almost slept in the jeepney despite all the bumps and potholes in the roads. It was a long day but most definitely enjoyable!