{"id":493,"date":"2008-06-02T22:00:48","date_gmt":"2008-06-02T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/blog\/elephant-trekking-and-swimming-in-pai-thailand\/"},"modified":"2008-06-02T22:00:48","modified_gmt":"2008-06-02T22:00:48","slug":"elephant-trekking-and-swimming-in-pai-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/2008\/06\/02\/elephant-trekking-and-swimming-in-pai-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Elephant trekking and swimming in Pai, Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Up early to go elephant trekking.  We eat our breakfast whilst walking to the pickup point.  We jump in the pickup and chat to another guy called Darren from Dublin.  At the elephant centre we all fall in love with the elephants that are there.  We feed them some bananas and get ready to go.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-1200x1600.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-1980x2640.jpg 1980w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5971-e1486215939728-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Abby and I are on our own elephant, called, Pom Pen.  After climbing up her leg and onto her back we are ready to go.  We are riding bareback, so that we can go swimming with the elephant at the end of the day, which means we get sore bottoms pretty quickly.  It&#8217;s an interesting way of riding on the elephant and great fun.<\/p>\n<p>We head up into the forest area.  It&#8217;s not so easy to stay on the elephant when going up steep hills, and even harder when coming down steep sections. We both feel like we are going to fall off more than once.  Our elephant guides are funny guys, and they use various noises and techniques to keep the elephants moving when they decide to stop, try to find food or start heading for pools of water.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG5989-1980x1485.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once we have descended from the forest we head over to the river.  The elephants pick up their pace the closer we get to the river.  Once in the river the elephants take great joy in throwing us from them into the water.  <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6004-1980x1485.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We wash the animals and take turns being bucked from the larger elephants back.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"700\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-1200x1600.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-1980x2640.jpg 1980w, https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/06\/CIMG6009-e1486216037798-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We climb back on and head back to the elephant centre where we sit in their hot tubs, which are fed from a local hot spring.<\/p>\n<p>This has been a wonderful experience, something we will not forget in a long time.<\/p>\n<p>We ask the pickup driver to drop us off at the swimming pool.  We arrange to meet Darren tomorrow night.  We spend the day at the swimming pool relaxing with drinks and good music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Up early to go elephant trekking. We eat our breakfast whilst walking to the pickup point. We jump in the pickup and chat to another guy called Darren from Dublin. At the elephant centre we all fall in love with the elephants that are there. We feed them some bananas and get ready to go. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"destinationtags":[],"mytrips":[79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"destinationtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destinationtags?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"mytrips","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itravelabout.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mytrips?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}