Elephant Farm

As much as I love going on vacation, I always need a vacation to recover from my vacation. I'm so jet lagged right now, I can barely function. My home is a mess, I walk around like a zombie and right now I'm not motivated to do anything :)

I also can't download and organize all my pictures because hubby says my laptop doesn't have enough space. The last time this happened, he had to increase the size of my hard drive but the side effect was that my laptop started making crazy jet engine noises. It also over heated easily and ran SLOWLY. I hope he will come up with a better solution ;)

We took a crazy amount of photos this time. Partly because we brought along 2 cameras and partly because the places we visited were so beautiful.

We started in Cambodia visiting Angkor in Siem Reap then took a little break in Kuala Lumpur & Melaka in Malaysia. Then we spent a day in Bangkok, we would have stayed longer but the timing was bad - they had floods all over the city and the news coverage scared us, stating there was no fresh water etc, etc. It turned out that it was greatly exaggerated because everything was fine when we went. We were able to visit the Grand Royal Palace and spend some time at the giant MBK mall. Then we flew off to Bhutan, the most magical place, still untouched by the outside world. We ended our trip in Chiang Mai, Thailand where we spent a couple of days wandering the city, enjoying the food and the night markets. We also spent a wonderful day at the Patara Elephant Farm.

I think the elephant farm was a highlight for my husband. I loved it but I was super nervous about being around such giant creatures and their giant POOP - haha. We were each matched with an elephant and then we spent the day learning how to be an elephant owner.

We were trained how to approach an elephant, to check it's temperament and health, to brush them and bathe them, to feed them, to communicate with them and then finally to ride on it's neck - what an unforgettable experience.

My elephant was named "Prowl". I'm definitely spelling it wrong - haha, but that's how the name sounded like. It's supposed to mean precious gem. She was 14 years old.

7 month old baby elephant roaming around the grounds

Feeding my girl :)

Part of the health check included checking the elephant's feet and looking for sweat. Healthy elephants sweat by their nails

Brushing off all the dirt and rocks off before bathing my girl.

Another health check which I couldn't bring myself to do. We had to squeeze the poop to make sure water drips out . Dry poop equals an unhealthy elephant.