Thai Christmas Eve

We had an early start today and got to the “forest” just as the first hint of daylight hit the horizon. (It turns out the forest was just a piece of land with a few trees and bushes and lots of rubbish.) It was great to see DP again but I wasn’t as keen to run and greet her as she had given herself a mud bath during the night.

Thankfully the morning is bath time and elephants love water. Dern Pen played around while Picchan scrubbed the dirt off her and Reung Napa (another elephant) loves the water so much that you could only see the top of her head during bath time.

I’m really enjoying focusing on one elephant. They are just like us – things they don’t like, things they like and things they love. Dern Pen loves fruit and cheekily discovered the supply I had hidden under the table so when it came time to hide the medicine in her fruit – I had to get more!!

Spent the morning just sitting in the chair on Dern’s back – it’s so comfy I could stay there for hours but I’m still a little jumpy when she moves around suddenly. Dawn on the other hand has no fear and once she was comfy she fell asleep!

It was a quiet day and all the elephants are a little grumpy. The leaves are not as tasty because they are getting to the bottom of the pile but it was food delivery day today courtesy of the afro-van!

Watching elephants drink is so funny. They fill their trunks with water then throw it all down their throats at once. That’s impressive when you think their trunks can hold 10-15 litres of water. It also sounds like a toilet flushing when they swallow it.



Because we were next in line to be called we couldn’t get ready to go to the forest until the park closed. By the time we were ready the others had left and so Piccha decided we should take a short-cut to catch up. Because he was walking alongside Dern Pen she follows him right over four walls of tires. We would usually go around them but he decided to go over them today without telling me. I was starting to panic as I had never ridden Dern Pen when she was climbing over things but Piccha just said his usual “No problem!”

To celebrate Xmas Eve Pin, Bo, Dawn and I head to a nearby restaurant. The food was great and we decided to finish it off with Donuts from Tesco! Pin is such a riot and after spending the night discussing Twilight, Johnny Depp, Dawn French, roast dinners and English breakfast it was time for bed.