Elephant Crossing!

I know, I'm spoiling you guys...two blogs in a row. You can pay me in coffee when I get home! 

Sunrise is at 6:38 AM, so we are all up by then to watch it over our backyard which consists of a country field and some elephants with no building in sight.

 

 

This picture does it absolutely no justice...I wanted to start singing the Lion King song because it was so damn awesome! 

In our lovely group of volunteers we have 3 nurses, an OB/GYN, a pharmacist, a cop, a yoga teacher...and well there is me. What do I bring to the table? I can sell you shit! Lol anyone need to negotiate the price of the elephant pants you're about to buy? I'm your girl! 

So, this morning our Yoga teacher woke us up and we meditated to the sunrise. Pretty incredible and very difficult to focus, even for a 9 minute chant. Didn't we learn our lesson with the 3 rounds around the Temple? 

 

After a grueling 9 minute chant, we shake it out and go eat some toast! Get ready for our elephants to arrive for the day. Try to contain your admiration for a second...16 elephants were due to arrive so we could walk them to the river and give them a bath...

They are here! (The house we stay at, they own a gas station...) Picture this: 16 elephants show up at a gas station...

We head to the river, I picked my elephant and naturally I picked the biggest one! She had freckles like me, so I had to! 

The walk through the country roads down to the river was about 3 miles long. You know when I picked my elephant there were a few things I should have considered...maybe just maybe you should pick one with similar stride length! 

I was sprinting just to keep up with her. She was a wild one this one, she did her own thing...didn't seem to pay much attention to her owner in regards to following direction. She most definitely didn't want to be at the back of the pack. She would race in front of whoever was in front of us. Going along side of them, I found myself squealing because I was about to be sandwiched between two elephants, forget that shark bite scar I was looking for! "American girl, gets sandwiched by elephants in Surin. Tourism at its finest" 

Did I mention she also stopped to eat just about every branch we passed? Then I find out she was pregnant...ahhhh, makes sense. 

We are strolling around the road...I'm petting her as we walk. She "nudges" me pretty hard with her trunk...like really hard. Haven't decided yet if it was a friendly gesture or her hormones! 

We finally get to the river! It's bath time. 🙌🏼

 

 

 

We had such an incredible experience with these playful animals. They were using their trunks to squirt water at us, rolling around in the water like pigs in the mud. 

Talk about a bucket list check off! 

It was time to say goodbye to our elephants for the day! 

 

Let's hope she doesn't have another hormonal moment as I grip her trunk with a hug! 

The afternoon was spent cleaning up the Queens elephant project area. There is a law in place to bring all the elephants back to surin and out of tourism. She helps compensate and aid each elephant that is apart of the program and their families. 

Unfortunately, we got to see a sick elephant who had taken one too many falls and no treatment was working. 

  

 

His owner was thankful to us for helping the community and volunteering so that his elephant could get help. He kept talking to the elephant saying look look get up and look at all these beautiful Canadian woman. 

It was eye opening that what I'm doing is helping individual families in aiding to their family member, the elephant. 💙

We had dinner to finish up the day, this ladies cooking is amazing! I want to bring her home with me lol