After breakfast (I’ll let you guess) we set off in our bus at 9:30 headed for the elephant village. Rafa had recommeded this particular place because he felt that this was one of the best as far as the welfare of the elephants goes, which we were all happy with.
Our guide tells us his name is Jey Wan (pronunciation yay-van, spelling guessed) and we get on a tired looking bus from the hotel to the elephant village (oddly, as I’m writing this retrospectively we have just passed the sign to the elephant village a second ago). I soon realise why the bus is a bit knackered as we start to bounce along the the bumpy roads to the site.
Once on site we are pointed to a raised platform where we could sit and wait for our elephants to arrive. We waited a while but then they finally came, elephants with what basically looked like park benches strapped to their backs, the benches sat on a few layers of rugs to cushion the feeling for the elephants. To mount we climbed up onto another platform where we were bench height to allow us to hop across. The guides sit on the very front, pretty much the necks of the elephant. Ours was called Muntim (pronounced moon-teem by our non-English speaking elephant pilot). It was fantastic, and we trekked around for around an hour and a half, plodding through the jungle and eventually across a section of river where our elephant decided to have both a number one and two.
It was a fabulous trek, and once we had finished we bought some bananas to feed to the elephants. Most took them with their trunks, but Muntim hadn’t been trained to do that so we popped it straight into his mouth, though we did feed a number of others via the trunk method.
After feeding time we were back down to the riverbank. Here we were to bathe the elephants, though none of us knew quite what to expect. Here mounting the elephants inolved the elephant lifting its front leg for us to stand on, and we then hopped on as if mounting a horse. The largest elephant was slightly different here, it sat like a dog would sit, and its climber had to scurry up its back. Unforunately Gaynor, a retired lady of a certain age, was tasked with climbing on to this one. Almost inevitably this didn’t turn out too well, so Steven ended up on the big fella. I should mention that this time we were not sat on benches, but on the neck of the elephant as the guides were before, and this time our helpers were behind us commanding the elephants. It’s quite an uncomfortable ride, but bloody good fun.
We wade out into the river and then the guides make them sit down, meaning that we get very wet. The guides are standing now so they are fine, but some us are nearly waist deep. Some of the elephants do more tricks than others, some squirting water, some splashing trunks to create big water showers, it was great fun. Mine didn’t do too much but it was fun enough watching Darren and Steven get drenched, Gaynor and Barry laughing from the side.
It wasn’t long before we were marching back in, but plenty of time to have great fun. The elephants lower themselves again and we hop off, sopping wet, and go for lunch back up at the platform. We discuss our relative experiences while we eat our egg rice with chicken and vegetables. For most of the trek, in fact about 15 minutes into it, Steven had swapped with his guide and was sat up on the neck of the elephant, and remained there the whole way round. I wasn’t offered, and was a bit disappointed as I would have loved to, so was pleased when we got on when we took the elephants bathing. Barry and Gaynor were apparently offered, but declined. After having sat up there for a while whilst out in the river I can say they probably made the right choice given their age, and hats off to Steven for managing over an hour up there. Once lunch was over we hopped back on the bus and back to the hotel.
Still excited from the elephant trip we needed to go pick up our laundry, a not so exciting trip. Yesterday we had taken our dirty stuff to a laundry where they weigh it and you pay 10,000 kip per kilo. Ours was 6.9 kilos and therefore 69,000 kip, around £5.50. However, before we could get our laundry we needed some cash as we had ran out, and had already borrowed 400,000 kip from Barry and Gaynor to pay for our elephant trip. Well, the card didn’t work in the machine, but everyone else, both before and after us, was fine. So, we called the bank and are on hold for 10 minutes before the lady tells me that she cannot discuss Mrs Tom’s card with me because I have entered my security details and not Mrs Tom’s (it is a joint account), even though Mrs Tom is sat next to me and quite willing and able to provide the necessary details. We need to call back and enter the other details. Having informed the lady that this was in fact ridiculous we were transferred to the security team who spoke to Mrs Tom and took the details needed to tell us the card had been blocked due to security concerns. Mrs Tom having made a special trip to our local branch to inform them of our travel plans, we were less than impressed. Note to Lloyds TSB – we will be writing a complaint and you will refund us the £15 in call charges racked up whilst dealing with your stupid red tape and queues. When someone dials the international number, they should be bumped up the queue.
Having stopped at an Internet cafe to sort out our financial woes we had a coffee, then went to collect our washing, finding a bad full of Steven’s pants in with our stuff. We gladly handed them over.
Rafa had told us of a place in Luang Prabang called Big Brother Mouse where visitors can meet with local children and help them to develop their English skills, written, spoken and reading. This was the morning session. The afternoon you could visit to play with the young folks to help them develop naturally through play. We thought this sounded like a great idea so set off in search of Big Brother Mouse. Sadly the children were not there, and we learned that the afternoon play session was not running at the moment, so we decided we would visit in the morning instead.
Our trip to Big Brother Mouse being cut short we were at a loss as to what to do, so Summer, Mrs Tom and I headed into town to peruse the shops before sitting down in a splendid shop that both sold wine in bottles to take away, but also by the glass and bottle to sit in the premises. It was by far the broadest selection of wine I had seen since leaving home with a mass of French wine on offer, most places serving Chillean, Californian if you’re lucky. We had arranged to meet Darren and Steven at 7 so kept an eye out as we sat for over an hour eating snacks and drinking wine, though I had beer cos I’m cool.
During our shop bothering we had booked ourselves a table for dinner in a nice looking place just across the street from where we had just been. Darren and Steven had been missing home foods so when I saw the menu our front with the page open on the steaks I had stopped to look at the offerings. They did a good wide selection of foods and we all had something nice to eat. Darren and Steven both had the steak, I had a soup and a bowl of rice with chilli beef, Mrs Tom had chicken satay (though we did expect somethig a bit nicer as it mentioned curry on the menu) and Summer had BBQ chicken and chips. All in all not that cultural, but what everyone wanted (except me of course, the culture king). We did have some local type fried spring rolls while we waited for our mains which slightly makes up for it I suppose.
Knackered after a couple of energetic days tourism, we packed up early and got a good early night in. I’m going to Vietnam tomorrow Vien! I will pretend that I don’t know you though so I don’t get killed, hope you don’t mind.