Nov 3, 2008 - Back to Bangkok

Today was another early morn. We had a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel before leaving. We headed out to the Elephant Camp near the mountains outside of Kanchanaburi. Here was an interesting time visiting the elephants of Thailand. We all road 2 up on a chair on the elephants back with a guide. He took us down a small hill to the river, with water halfway up the elephants body. Of couse we had to get a picture taken. The one we rode was 20 yrs and was on her 2nd baby which followed us around. They do about 30 tourist rides a week. We rode through the woods for about 1/2 hour. We then had a choice to take a bamboo raft trip. They used a long boat to tow us up the river then floated back down river to where we entered. We saw several iguanas on the river bank. The group then brought in a junior elephant and it put on a show for us. The elephant show consisted of it walking on 2 legs, sat up like a dog, and I got a massage from him where he stomped on my back and for the guys, he stomped on their front. All the Thai elephants are smaller not like African ones. Leaving the camp, we headed back toward Bangkok stopping at a family restaurant (a friend of the guide). His restaurant is in the middle of a paddi (rice) field. They grow Jasmine Rice. The food was the best yet. Authentic Thai food. Fish, fried pork, seaweed soup, veg with shrimp, beef with oyster sauce, rice, and more. As we headed back to Bangkok we hit lots of traffic again. Our hotel, the Montien was in the center of town. 24 hour shopping, eating, dancing (yes ballroom style), and kariokee. My roomate and I were still full from lunch, so instead of getting dinner we just sat at a coffee shop on the main street and watched people for a couple hours, had coffee, tea and dessert then headed to bed. Tomorrow is another full day as we head to Pattaya visiting gardens, cultural dance show, elephant show, Thai massage and cabaret show. G'nite. Anna