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One of the exciting and adventurous thing that I would like to try in Phuket was bungy jump. But all my tour mates are not too adventurous and definitely not a good candidate for Fear Factor, so in the end we ended up going to Elephant Trekking. It turned out to be a wonderful experience, I never expect ridding an elephant can be so much fun and different from whatever I have rode before!

The price to pay for a 30 minutes ride is 800 baht (equivalent to about RM80), not cheap indeed. After some negotiation… and some flirting from my female mates, the dude finally allowed 700 baht per person. I was still not very keen to take up the offer until I see this among the many photos at the ticket counter.

What a surprise to see Hong Kong superstar Jacky Chan! Now, he tried the elephants here, I had no reasons not to. So, off we bought the tickets and in we went to check out the elephants.

Now, that’s me on the elephant!!!

No lar… that’s a lame joke. Haha. Due to security reasons, I am not able to show you my photo. But my friends are not on the wanted list, so no problems for them. Look how happy they are on the hugh elephant which according to them is about 26 years of age.

There’s a ladder cum hut platform which is about 3 meters tall to allow us to board the largest living land mammals on Earth easily. Otherwise it would have been an incredible task to climb the elephant.

I must admit sitting on an elephant was a bit scary at first, especially when the loud automobiles (see the pic above) approached us. But it was all OK. The ride was a little bumpy although the elephant plodded very slowly… After a while I realized that they are hugh and yet graceful.

We followed a trail into a big rubber plantation. According to the tour guide, the rubber trees are over-aged, so the plantation is now only good for elephant trekking purposes only. No more rubber tapping here.

The trail was not very deep into the plantation, remember we only paid for the 30 minutes ride. Before long, we were back to the camp. Now a little trivia, do you know that elephants feed on pineapples and pineapple trees? Pineapples have very high sugar content and are good for exhausted elephants and elephants at hard work. Elephants can eat all parts of the pineapple plant.

Elephants are not all big and lame. Check this little baby elephant who can perform all sorts of nifty tricks you and I have difficulty doing. A video will do the talking much better, enjoy!

After the elephant camp tour, we continued our journey to the famous Thailand Monkey Show! Those monkeys can do many more stunning tricks, so do stay tuned!

Tagged: thailand holiday, thai, elephant, vacation, phuket