Moonlight and Chocolate

Sara and David on our elephant named Moonlight

Anne and Gary on their elephant named Chocolate

Meet Moonlight and Chocolate - our elephants for the morning!  Each elephant had a mahout (elephant trainer) that rode on the elephant's neck. We rode in twos on seats strapped to their backs. You can take a several hour mahout training in order to ride on the neck, but we decided against this. So imagine our surprise when twenty minutes into the ride, just as we reached a steep downhill section, the mahouts hopped off the elephants and told David and Dad to "drive" by riding on the necks. Again, no instruction. The mahouts trusted us and the elephant's trusted them - the circle of trust, I guess! Other than the steep bit after Dad had started driving when Mom yelled "help, help!" because she thought he was out of control, we all really loved the ride. After a little while, I switched places with David and got to drive, too!

Side note: Mom and Dad's mahout, Khum, was 18-years-old and spoke great English. He couldn't pronounce Anne and Gary, so instead he called them Mommy and Daddy. We really got a kick out of this!

Another side note: David and Moonlight were exactly the same age. David got a kick out of this.

What a morning!

~Sara

Moonlight's beautiful eye