This bucket list item was inspired by my amazing friend Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu. Sylvie is incredibly intelligent and funny and I love and appreciate the way she thinks and expresses herself. She has this uncanny ability to explain and decipher situations that is almost poetic. At the same time she is edgy and pure and of course is a total flippin badass. About two and a half years ago she came to stay with me in Pennsylvania for a long weekend while preparing for a muay thai fight. One night after training we went out for some well deserved wings and drinks at a local pub and while there we discussed the 3 month long trip she had taken to Thailand. During that conversation she had mentioned that if you blow into the trunk of an elephant that it will remember you forever. Elephants live to be as old as 85 so who wouldn't want their memory to be trapped inside a prehistoric giant for a lifetime? It quickly found its home on my bucket list in slot 111.
Don't worry that elephant isn't trying to eat me. I'm stuffing his face with bananas so we can be friends.
Flash forward two years and here I am in Thailand visiting Sylvie who has been living here for a year while fighting Muay Thai professionally. Sylvie being the awesome person she is booked us a day trip to ride elephants in the jungle with Patra Elephant Farm. Kinda the perfect environment for trunk blowing if you ask me. Let me just say wrangling a 12,000lb elephants trunk is entirely more difficult to do than I had ever anticipated. In hindsight I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Good thing I'm no quitter.
Swimming with my elephant
Sylvie with her swim buddy
Sylvie getting her scrub on
I had about 6 hours to complete my conquest. During that time we made friends with our elephants, cleaned them, went swimming with them, bathed them, ate an awesome lunch and then rode them through the jungle for about 2 hours. Sylvie excelled at cleaning her elephant I on the other hand did a subpar job. I just wanted to hangout with it. Besides the elephant I swam with was a legit rebel and she didn't want to listen to anyone. It's quite a feeling to be on the back of this tyrannosaurus rex like creature and its just does whatever the hell it wants. At one point in the water it scared the living hell out of me by flopping down on its side. About halfway down I abandoned ship throwing myself off into the water, mind you I'm no Michael Phelps. I just flailed around like spaz case while my elephant handler assistant guy thought I lost my mind.
This was Sylvie and I's staged fight photo. This is what happens when you put two girls together who can't behave. Pretty cool pic tho huh?
Riding the elephants through the jungle was AMAZING. Elephants only breath about 3 times a minute so when they do it's like a whale coming up for air. And their ears are like gigantic sheets of leather that flap against your legs. When they get hot and they don't have any water to cool themselves they blow snot all over your legs but you can't even get mad because your in the jungle riding an elephant.
All aboard!
Please note Sylvie not helping....only heckling. Total jerk. :)
Sylvie and I opted to ride together on the same elephant which in the end was a great decision. Our faces hurt from laughing so hard and we totally went crazy when our elephant ripped a tree down and ate it while we were riding it. We had the best elephant on the whole trip.
When we finished our ride Sylvie got right down to business about blowing in a trunk. Her master plan was get our elephants attention by stuffing its face with bananas and then I'd have to just grab a hold and give a good blow. Let's just say way easier said than done. Not to mention I probably looked like a maniac trying to do it. Sylvie got it on the first try but unfortunately for me I wasn't ever able to wrangle the trunk and was quickly watching my quest slip through my fingers. Enter baby elephant.
After this picture was taken we were told petting or pushing on the head could get us trampled and killed. Oops.
Baby is actually trying to push me over but it's cool...we're bff's now.
Baby elephant was four months old and looked more like an aardvark on steroids than an elephant. It was an extraordinarily jubilant little specimen that weighed around 400 pounds. It's most favorite activity was ramming tourists and trying to sit on the elephant handlers. Sylvie shares her own entertaining experience with wrestling the baby elephant here. While playing with this baby elephant we watched one of the handlers give it water from a water bottle and then gently and playfully blow in its trunk. Sylvie and I's jaws dropped and we stared at each other in disbelief. I can't even describe how quick I jettisoned my backpack on the floor and scrambled for my water bottle. It took about 2 minutes for me to pied piper the baby over, grasp his soft little trunk and seal myself in there for ever. Mission accomplished and #111 in the books!
Read about some of my other adventures in Thailand here:
#114 Fight in Another Country
#67 Travel to Thailand
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