Elephant artists and revered temples

Wednesday started off with a trip to Lampang and a visit to the Lampang Elephant Sanctuary. First let me say that my family is CRAZY for elephants. For me, not so much. When we arrived there were all these elephants roaming around, you know, free to trample us or stampede or whatever elephants do when generally annoyed with tourists taking their picture one too many times.

The sanctuary has about 100 elephants, the world's only elephant hospital, and a retirement home for the beasts when they retire at 60. (I wonder if they earn pensions?) Aside from being very smart and having the strength to knock over small buildings, apparently they are also artists. As the picture shows, I'm not making this crap up. Kimbo actually bought a painting and it's not half bad.

We took an hour-long elephant ride which is much more romantic in theory than practice, and fed and petted some of the elephants including a six month old baby. Their trunks feel exactly like the hose on my vacuum cleaner, only stronger and bigger and with more snot.

This morning (Thursday) we left early for Sukhothai, a UNESCO heritage site, for a bicycle tour. I knew very little about the area other than it was the former capital of Siam back in the day. I have to say this has been my favourite day so far. The site is extremely impressive and must be seen to be fully appreciated.

It was wonderful to get out into the heat and sun for a wee bit of exercise, since so far I've not had to carry my own bag, walk anywhere, or miss a meal. No one crashed or fell off but we had to keep stopping to pick up Mom's hat. Simon suggested we wear hats for the heat and the best Mom could come up with was something that was only slightly better than those welding visors the Chinese women wear in Vancouver. It was also not entirely practical since the massive visor acted like a wind catch and kept blowing off and parachuting to the ground.

Tonight we have a dinner that Simon says involves throwing food in the air and catching it. Perhaps something is lost in the translation but I'm sure there will be something interesting to report.

Tomorrow we're on the road again for a long journey to Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai.

Tonya

PS I have uploaded pictures to the last post.