Thailand: Putong 3

Thailand 3

Today is Tuesday. All the days are running together. That's what an extended vacation will do I guess. 

I want to tell you about my tour !! 

We booked a tour to see the island of Phuket and hit some highlights. And that we did! Our stops were Kata viewpoint /lookout, a safari park where we saw a snake show, a monkey show, said hello and played with a baby elephant for a bit looked at some lovely orchids, and then rode an elephant. Yes, be jealous. I was paired with Seth and we started out in our seats atop Elliot's back. I have no idea what the elephants name was, but Seth decided it should be Elliot the elephant. So Elliot starts out with his trainer on his head and us in the seats. Then about halfway the trainer asks if he can't take pictures for us. Well sure! So he jumps down and gets some distance to take pics while calling Elliot to follow. Then... This is good... Then he says to climb onto Elliot's neck. OKAY!  So I pop the bar holding us in our seats off and clamber down. Ahhhh! It was so fun! I was pitching with every step and an elephant doesn't have handles. So I had my legs bent to hang on and was braced on Elliot's head with my arms. (The trainer took some great pics...to be posted as soon as I can)

I can officially say I've ridden an elephant and that's pretty sweet. 

Pure joy is what comes from elephant riding. FYI.....

We also visited a giant Buddha statue that is part of a temple still being built. It's 75 meters tall and 28 wide... I think. After that was the Chalong Temple which was like other temples I'd seen. There was append with some decent size catfish. Then the cashew factory. There were samples! Did you know that cashews come from fruit and then the nut is dried, and the cashew has to be cracked out of it. And then someone removes the extra brown stuff before it looks like the nuts we see in the store. Also, cashew juice /tea is pretty tasty. I know I've used a lot of "then" and "after" ..... Sooooo, next was the honey shop. They had samples too!! I tried honey chocolate, honey wine, and honey water. All of which was good. The honey water particularly so.  Finishing off our day trip was this really really high scale schnazzy schmaltzy gift shop that was basically a jewelry store with some knock knack gifts at the back. But we got free coffee at the end. 

The rest of my day was eating twice, a Starbucks, and some drinks. 

Oh and planning the next leg if the trip. Tentatively headed to krabi and then Cambodia. 

Until next time. Love from the traveler. (That's me)