Elephants! Monkeys!

Trip Start Jan 06, 2008
1
5
40
Trip End Jul 08, 2008


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Flag of Thailand  ,
Saturday, January 19, 2008

     Yesterday we rented bikes and cruised around Ayyutthaya.  We saw ruins everywhere and got to get a bit out of the tourist track.  I saw something on the map that said, "Elephant Kraal Pavilion"  I didn't know what that entailed, but the chance of seeing more elephants was all we needed.  We rode pretty far and the only indication that we were on the right road was crudely painted signs that depicted a neon pink elephant stencil.  We eventually found the road after riding into an elderly woman's backyard.  She had probably had many lost farangs cruise up to here place on the quest for pachyderms!  She pointed us toward the next street over and as we cruised up we saw them, elephants of all ages.  Some were wondering about freely and others were loosely chained.  Some Australian girl was giving one lucky elephant a bath and he was actually squirting water out of his trunk!  It turns out the place was once where the royal elephant army was trained, but now it is a home for abused elephants
Monkeys
Monkeys
.  How cool would it be to live in a country that had an elephant ARMY!  Actually, we could have had one in the US.  During the Civil War the King of Thailand offered to give Abraham Lincoln an elephant army to fight the south, but he refused.  We were pretty much in awe, having never seen so many elephants in one place, so we ordered some noodles and had lunch about 20 feet from the elephants.  They all had names and some of them kept escaping by removing their chains.  The people running the show seem to find all of this as amusing as we did and let the escapees stampede about before luring them back with treats.
      Today we headed north to Lopburi to see a temple and town over-run by monkeys.  This sounded cool, and it was, but it was also a little scary.  The first monkey I saw I got out my camera to take a picture and realized that my screen had somehow gotten destroyed.  I can't see what I'm taking a picture of or what the settings are, but at least the camera still works.  This sucked pretty bad and I was really bummed since it's so early in the trip.  I was feeling pretty sulky as we entered the Monkey Temple so Jeremy bought me a little bag of sunflower seeds to feed the monkeys with.  I was kind of pouting when a renegade monkey snatched the whole bag from me!  I screamed because I thought it bit me, but it just grabbed them quite forcefully.  This was pretty hysterical and cheered my up about the whole camera thing.  As we walked around the temple there were hundreds of monkeys, many which were jumping on a German tourist.  I laughed my ass off at this spectacle and even took pictures of the poor guy.  About 10 minutes later a monkey jumped on me and was climbing up me like I was a banana tree.  I shrieked and he tried to bite me so I threw him off and he ran away.  I don't think he was attacking or anything, he wasn't really even trying to bite me, he just thought I had food.  Talk about instant Karma! 
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Comments

gpace
gpace on

SSSOOOOO COOOOOOL!!!
The pictures are so cool! I'm so glad you gave me the book on Thailand. Mom and I are reading about the places you and Jeremy visit, as soon as we get your latest blog. It feels like we are with you both. Sorry about your camera...hope you can still get the pics you want.
love,
dad and mom

bigdog
bigdog on

Elephants
Those elephants were awesome! Maybe we should have taken the elephant army. How much did it cost to ride the elephants? I think that monkey city looked like where they filmed the old Tarzan movies. Love you much! Curlyheaded Lady

kzkincaid
kzkincaid on

So Cool
The elephants and monkeys are so neat. The girls loved the pictures. I am glad that monkey didn't bite you. I laughed at the picture of you with the monkey. Love, Kyla

amyaustin
amyaustin on

yowza
Love the pictures, and I gotta tell you, this entry made my day. My favorite line is 'I was feeling sulky as we entered the Monkey Temple'.

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