Today was my birthday and I was turning 13, finally a teenager! The car was waiting for us as we left the breakfast hall. We jumped in and began our ride to the elephant camp. After a one hour drive we reached the Thai Elephant Home. Accompanying us to the site today were two other groups. One was a couple from Australia who had taken their summer to travel to Thailand and Southeast Asia before returning to their University. The other group was a family of four. The kids were both blond, blue eyed boys, and looked about 6-7 years old. Their names were Matthew and Thomas, and today was also Matthew’s birthday; he was turning six. Their family worked for the U.S. embassy. At the elephant camp, we were briefed on the history and two species of elephants, and then on the tools and commands used to ride them: (Mab-LOONG) firm pat on the back = Sit down (Luk) = Stand up (Bye) knee both ears= Go (How) squeeze legs= Stop (Ben) knee ear opposite direction you want to go= Turn We changed into Northern-style clothing and flip flops so we didn’t ruin our clothes. We were led over to a small shrine to the Elephant lord, Ganesh. Here we took off our shoes and hats, and lit incense as an offering to him; asking for safe interactions with the elephants. Now we proceeded to load our arms with sugar cane to feed to the elephants below. The elephants were on a plateau a little farther down the hill. After their feeding, even though none of their hunger abated in the least, (an elephant is always hungry), we mounted different elephants and did a quick practice loop. Elephants are very smart so it may come as no surprise that they realized we were totally inexperienced and paid us no heed. They saw that we didn’t have spiked sticks (like the Mahouts), heard us mangle the commands, and basically knew we knew nothing. I would maybe get my Elephant to respond 4-5 times during the entire day. After the mahouts finished leading us in a practice loop, they brought us out onto the road which led towards the jungle. My mahout wore shorts and a jean jacket over his T-shirt and had a cowboy hat made out of a woven material adorned with purple sequins. He spoke a little English: Hello. Thank you. Bye. We rode until we reached a small river, where the mahout leaped on my elephant’s back (her name was Wan), and the elephant waded knee deep through the river, about waist high for us. Once across, we rode through the jungle until noon, when we stopped for our lunch. The elephants went and splashed in a tiny pool while we ate our food. We sat down for lunch and found a row of oranges and banana leaf packages down the middle of the table. Opening up my package I found a pile of scrumptious Shrimp Pad Thai. There were also small packets of chili powder and sugar and a small wedge of lime, which brings out the citron flavor. Two elephants were brazen enough to stick their trunks in to our little lunch place and take our banana leaves, dumping the Pad Thai on the ground!  The Australian couple had to wrestle the elephant’s trunk away. They did not succeed. After lunch we went mounted our now even dirtier elephants and proceeded on to the second half of our journey. I fed Wan three pieces of sugar cane which I had stashed in my bag. Thank you to my Dad for giving me the 3^rd piece, because Wan would not have been very happy if I led her on with a 2^nd piece and then stopped.  It is quite amusing when Elephants eat sugar cane. They put it in their mouths, position it just right, and wait. After a while you hear a loud "CRUNCH!!!” and a gurgling deep within your elephant. Then you remember that your head fits perfectly in an elephant’s mouth, and a sugar cane is the same, if not more, on the toughness scale as your skull. Then you’re glad you’re up top. Then you check your feet. Another hour or so later, we reached the mud pool. A plateau of mud, made by a mixture of clay, water, and yes, elephant poop. The elephants were so overjoyed, that they rubbed themselves against the rocks and each other, scratching and getting mud all over. However, elephants can’t get the mud everywhere, so we had to help in our little way. We threw mud-balls on dry spots, and if a trunk was near us we lathered it with mud. In front of an elephant was where I thought I had the best chance of not being stepped on as it backed up. We washed off and walked over a single log bridge back to solid ground, where we mounted our EXTREMELY dirty elephants and trekked onward. Thankfully, since we had first started out, all the way from the Thai Elephant Home, my Mahout had carried my flip-flops for me, which otherwise were very prone to fall off. Without my shoes I could put my feet in more comfortable conditions. The most comfortable one being: Knees on top of the elephant’s ears, the soles of your feet on the lower front shoulders. Wan did not let me do that for more than ten seconds, after which I would be privy to a head shaking and flapping trunk. I heeded her warnings. Sometime during our trip either to the mud pool, or away from it, a horrific incident occurred. My Mom’s elephant was leading us along a narrow path, one side had steep hills, the other side gave way to an even steeper drop down a rocky hill side and a landing among massive boulders in a river. My Mom’s elephant was old and slow, and behind her was Katherine’s elephant, a baby. The baby got impatient, and tried to rush around Mom’s elephant. I saw the baby’s feet at insane angles as it skid down the hill side trying to get back up. Katherine screamed, and her mahout yanked the elephants reign and pulled her back, giving the elephant the foothold it needed to climb back up. In the distance I heard loud sobs. Even though it had only been a few feet, I cannot imagine how scary it would have been. We are so lucky that my sister’s elephant did not flip, and was able to scramble back up. We finally reached the river again, only this time we got off and washed and played with our elephants. The elephants rolled in the water, emitting loud bellows of joy. My mahout and I splashed water on Wan and splashed water into her mouth. Apparently, Elephants need the mud for sunblock, and the water to stay healthy. Flies will lay eggs in the hair follicles of an elephant, and so the Mahout needs to scrub his elephant with a brush and let water flow over his elephant. Otherwise the flies hatch and eat their nearest food source, their host. All the mahouts were showing off with tricks that they and their elephant could do. One mahout who my sister had made friends with, stopped splashing Katherine and went over to a massive elephant. He got on its back and got down on his knees and hands. Then he yelled and slapped the elephant. The elephant would violently shake its back, and the mahout would jump up, still in the crawling position, over and over to avoid getting shaken off. My mahout asked if I wanted to do something special, and I said yes. He had me stand legs apart, with my back touching Wan’s head and grabbing her ears. Then he said, “(BOON)”, and Wan raised her trunk through my legs and lifted me up. I was sitting in mid-air, on an elephant’s trunk. How cool is that! After a minute or so Wan put me down, and I tried to get my family up there. They refused saying it was something that only I should experience since it was my birthday, but eventually I got my Dad up there. He was smiling broadly. Then he experienced the smell of elephant breath. His grin faded a bit but came back out soon. Later he thanked me for making him try it. It seemed that the mahouts had as much fun as the elephants.

Now it was time to head back. We all mounted our wet elephants and rode off once again. Sometime during the ride, Katherine re-mounted her elephant, but my Mom stayed on foot and snapped the pictures. We had been passing sugar cane and banana vendor stalls the entire day, but since my mom was on foot she bought and was able to bring me a bundle of sugar canes. Wan happily munched them up. Cool fact: Elephants will not eat sugar cane one at a time, but use the end of its trunk to hold one, and then the end part to grab another. The end of the trunk looks like a pig nose, with two big slit-holes, but it also has a small little flipper-ish thing that acts as a finger. The opposite side has two bumps which look like the bumps on top of an elephant’s head. When we reached Thai Elephant Home once more, I said goodbye to Wan and since my Mahout was already lading her away, I shouted thank you in Thai to him. It took several attempts but he finally heard me, and waved back, smiling. My sister’s mahout told her elephant to say goodbye, and her elephant stretched out and trumpeted a high pitched and moderate volume note on her horn. It was great! Now we changed. I grabbed my clothes and went down to the bathrooms to change. When I was done, I opened the door, and there was a massive cloud of flies swarming right outside. I brushed them aside, and found out, too late, that they were WASPS!!! I was stung two times but I made my escape. One sting was on the side of my left ring finger, the other was on the inside of my left arm, about two inches past the wrist. Ironically, earlier in Thailand I had also brushed away one of these “flies” and got stung on my left wrist! In their usual fashion, the stings were soon red dots surround by a circle of white welt. My mom put some medicine on the stings, toothpaste. It actually helped a bit. We all ate some watermelon and talked a bit before thanking the chief mahout, and getting back in the car. As we drove off in to the afternoon, I thought how lucky I was that I got to spend my 13^th birthday riding with the elephants. I know I will never forget this birthday, just like my elephant Wan.