February 20th, 2011. Luang Prabang, Laos. Written by Adam.
The last two days were probably the best of the trip so far. Why? Because I went on the best tour of the trip so far. That tour was a two-day elephant trek!
The tour started in the morning when the mini-van picked us up at our hotel. After a half hour ride, we arrived at Elephant Village. There we waited to meet our guide. When everybody was together, we had fifteen minutes of training on how to control an elephant with the rest of the group. We learned how to make the elephant bend its leg so you could get on, kneel so you could get on and off (Kira and I had to get on while it was kneeling because it was too big standing up), make the elephant go, stop, turn left and turn right.
To get on the elephant while it was kneeling, you stood on its leg, grabbed its ear, and attempted to jump so you could get to the neck. That didn’t always work, so sometimes you were lying on your stomach on the side of the elephant and you had to pull yourself up and swing your leg over. I was pretty shaky at the
beginning but as I got further around the camp, I started to get used to riding. After the training, we got into a basket on the back of the elephant to take our first ride. Kira and I went in the same basket as we went up and down hills and into the Nam Kahn River. About halfway through the river, the mahout (the elephant controller) asked me if I wanted to ride on the neck. That’s what I had most wanted to do when we booked the tour, so of course I said yes.
While I rode, I had my hands on the elephant’s head for support. It was rough, and its hairs kind of felt like plastic. For more support, I put my legs behind its ears. After a few minutes on the neck it was Kira’s turn, so I got back in the
basket with the mahout. We rode back to the camp and got off. Then we got to feed the elephants bananas. They ate the peels and the branch the bananas were attached to. They grabbed the bananas with their trunks which were almost like hands, which I thought was really cool.It was time to check into our hotel so the group piled into the long, skinny boat that took us up the river to the Elephant Lodge. Kira and I shared a room with two single beds covered with mosquito nets, a tall wooden wardrobe, and a shelf with some drinking water, a flashlight, two candles, and a lighter. After checking in, we crossed the river in the boat to go on our first elephant ride without the basket. I got on my kneeling elephant in front of the mahout and followed the others that were going down the trail. Riding felt pretty unstable at the beginning. When the elephant took a step forward its shoulder blade went down so you had to lean the other way.
We went down the trail, sometimes going off on a little side trail through the trees. When the elephant sped up I felt like I would fall off, but I never did. We rode up and down hills and around curves through the jungle until we got to the place where we would stop.
After I dismounted I watched the mahouts take the elephants separate ways where they could sleep and eat. Then we hiked back to the river where the boat was waiting to take us to the dry Tad Sae waterfall. It’s not always dry, but it is the dry season.When we arrived after the boat trip, we walked up to the waterfall and saw a zip line company! I asked if I could go and since I had wanted to zip line since the trip started my parents said yes. Kira went also but my parents didn’t. We started the adventure by getting suited up in the zip line gear and taking a long hike to the top. Next came the firs zip line! One of the staff members went first and the other stayed with us. I went next. The staff member hooked me in, said, “One, two, three!”, and I was flying. I raced through the treetops listening to the sound of the zip above my head until I reached the next platform.
The person waiting for me quickly unhooked me from the line and hooked me onto a wire going around the tree that held up the platform. I watched Kira zip towards me and then she was done, too. We went on a few more zip lines until we came to the gigantic two-hundred meter one. Once again, I went first. I jumped off the platform and started flying again. I don’t know how long the ride took, but it was at least twice as long as the second longest one.After that zip line was the first vertical drop. To do a drop, the staff member will attach a rope to your harness and feed it through a contraption that slows it down. Then, you jump off the platform and get lowered down. After a series of zip 14 lines and 4 drops we were done. Kira and I walked back to our waiting group, got back on the boat, went to dinner, and then to sleep.
The next day, we got up at six thirty to bathe the elephants. We took the boat to t
he trail and hiked to where we would meet them. Everybody’s mahout had come except mine and my dad’s. We were waiting for a really long time before they walked up next to their elephants. My mahout made his elephant kneel and I got on. Then, he told the elephant to go behind my dad’s, but my mahout was walking next to me so I was on the elephant alone. To catch up to everybody else, we charged down the hills and through the jungle. If you can say an elephant galloped, that would be when to say it. After a very fun solo ride, we got to the river. My mahout gave me a scrub-brush and I started washing. When I was done the mahout made the elephant splash with its trunk. That eventually finished and we went to get breakfast.
After that, we got picked up to trek. We walked through the “jungle” for a few hours then came to a village full of
bamboo huts. We kept walking up and down hills, over bridge
s, and through villages. Sometimes our guide would stop us to tell us something. Oh! Did I mention that it was blazing hot the whole time? After five hours, we completed our eleven mile hike. It was definitely the most challenging, and most satisfying to finish, hike I had ever done. I loved those two days.
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