Definitely a bucket list experience!
The company picked us up at the hotel and drove us with a group of 2 other pairs. It was about a 90 minute drive up in the mountains on very windy roads. Thank God the nurse in KC prescribed the motion sickness patch that I put behind my ear. Had I not had that, I would have been very sick on the drive up.
When we arrived at Patara, we got some opening instructions from the guides and then were broken into our group.
We were paired with our elephants, Jojo had Bon, a male and I had Dodo, a male with tusks. They were really sweet and gentle.
We learned some commands, brushed the elephants back off to get rid of the dust and mud. We used a large group of branches to do that.
We then learned how to climb on the elephant, they do not have seats on their back so we had to climb on them different ways.
After we were able to get on the elephant, we went for a walk in the woods and the small river that led us to a large pond. There we bathed the elephant and brushed the elephants skin to get rid of any dirt and parasites.
After bathing the elephants we had a lunch break in a hut. The staff at Patara cooked and provided the lunch and it consisted of different kinds of sticky rice, tons of fresh fruit and fried chicken.
When we finished our lunch, we boarded the elephants and went for another ride straight up a mountain. The elephants are sure footed, but it still was very scary walking near a very steep drop off. None of our elephants went off the path and no one was injured.
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