Time for another post. On monday we had our first day off, one of the only three, and i would definitely say i have spent it well. Waking not much later than normal practice time, my roommate, catherine and i all got up to meet our "tuk-tuk" (open ended truck) and we were off to ride some elephants. It was early and not too many people were at the safari yet, so we quickly found an ellie and hopped on top! At first i thought i would possibly be riding the elephant bareback, but we quickly saw the set up and they had put chairs on top for us to sit on. The poor elephant had to carry all three of us on top at once! Such a large and powerful animal, but also playful too. Asian elephants are very much different than the African elephants we saw in Tanzania, being much smaller in the ears. Anyways, we rummaged through the rainforest and had the chance to feed him some bananas along the way. Our elephant could reach over its back using its trunk to catch the bananas we threw at him . He enjoyed this a lot and we quickly ran out of bananas. Then we returned to the park and watched them in an elephant show. These elephants are smart and hilarious! As always there were volunteers in need so Emily and Catherine one-by-one got up and became helpers in the show. Each of them were put face down on the ground and the elephant gave them each a "massage" by lifting their massive foot and lightly pressing down on their butts and backs. Emily described it like a tickle that she couldn't help but squirm to. After the elephant show, we watched a monkey show followed by a thai boxing show. Not sure how the latter is related to animals? Nonetheless, a little bit of thai culture for you. We were quickly shuttled back on the "tuk-tuk" and off to see the Secret Buddha Garden hidden way back in a think jungle. It was beautiful with lush green plants and flowers surrounding everything, a waterfall, and a number of Buddha folklore statues. We all took pictures of ourselves doing cool yoga poses, we just couldn't help ourselves. Yoga nerds. But this quickly ended when it began pouring raining, as this is not unusual for Thailand. Super strong rain, out of nowhere, surely to get you soaking wet in a matter of a minute. But we were happy, and off we went again in our tuk-tuk for the Na Muang waterfalls and lunch. It was a quick hike up to see these were beautiful falls, very soft, calm and relaxing. Followed by a traditional Thai food meal. Afterwards, we started our trek back to the hotel. By this time we were clear across the island so it took us an hour and a half to get home. Something about smelling the exhaust from our tuk-tuk was not ideal. We finally arrived changed out of our smelly clothes and into our bikinis and were ready for stand-up-paddleboarding(SUP) yoga! Not far from the Big Buddha, myself and a few other girls got our boards out and started paddling for our sunset SUP yoga. The wind was a bit strong, and we could barely finish a sun salutation before we had to pick up our paddle and head back the other direction. Still very fun and a bit of challenge! Then we had play time, so i first tried a headstand, and some other asanas, and braved the handstand. Although i didn't get much hang time, it was awesome! Yoga and SUP together is a beautiful thing. After an hour of this we were exhausted, so we treated ourselves to a Thai massage. You can get a really good one hour massage for 10$ here. incredibly, really. So we walked across the street, got a massage, and followed this with an american meal at the café "The Friendship." I split a cheeseburger and lasagna with Catherine. This was such a nice change from thai food for every meal. After this, we hailed a taxi and returned to the resort. I was absolutely exhausted but perfectly satisfied with everything i had done! I cannot wait to explore more. Until next time, ill be doing yoga 24/7.
Goodnight everyone.
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