Elephants playing basketball?!

Journal #25 March 15, 2009

Sorry I have not written in a while, I have been writing my journals but have not even had the time to send them. I am just none stop right now but I am having the time of my life while doing it.

So today we arrived in Thailand. I was not quite sure of what to expect. As I looked out of the ship all I could see was miles and miles of industrial port. It was not very pretty. The ship was cleared around 10am. As I got off the ship I knew that I had a trip at 1pm. I was going to an elephant village in Pattaya. There were a couple shops right off the boat so I decided to go look at them. The shops were filled with souvenirs and clothing. The women that were working at the stores were so pretty and nice. I decided to not go out on the town because I did not want to be late for my trip. So I spent the morning on the ship.

The elephant village was so much fun!!! When we first got there we were able to buy bananas to feed to the elephants. I was really excited. The elephants were sooo big and there were probably about 15 all on a line. I was able to feed the elephants and they were gross :( they slobbered all over my hand. But it was still cool.

Then we all sat down and he talked to us for about 10 min. then he said that he needed 10 people to come to the front. Of course I ran up there. So I was picked to ride the elephant and take a bath with it. I climbed onto the elephant and the guy who was riding with me was named wii. We walked for about half a mile and then the elephant walked into the water, with me on top of him, and dunked me in the water!!! I got wet but I did not get soaked. That was really cool. It was hard sitting on the elephant. It felt like I was going to fall off every now and then, but wii kept me safe.

After that everyone had a chance to ride the elephants and feed them. We then were seated and listened to a guy talk to us about the elephants. He told us many facts about elephants; such as, if u take a rope and wrap it around the elephants foot that will give you the length from the ground to the elephants shoulder, that the guy elephants have 5 legs ;) and that elephants are pregnant for about 21-22 months.

Then we were introduced to an elephant that used to be in the Thailand circus and could do a number of tricks. She found coins on the ground, ate a certain number of bananas from the ground and also played basketball. The cool thing was that I was picked from the crowd to play defense against the elephant. I stood underneath the hoop and waited for the elephant to come. She charged me from about 200 ft away and then stopped right before me. She then got on her back two feet and made the basket!!! That was pretty cool and a little scary.

When we left the village we headed back to the ship and me and a group of students went to the mall near our ship. Me and Meghan did some shopping and got some ice cream. The mall was very similar to America’s malls. One thing that I did notice was how fashionable the people of Thailand are. The clothes are very stylish. My first day in Thailand was really good. I love the scenery and the people are so friendly.