Today was a nice relaxing day with a little elephant in it :)
I woke up to an awesome spa day. Didn't go for the Thai massage, the hard pressure point body twisting type, but the traditional Swedish. They had a jacuzzi bathtub you could buy time for, but the spa overall was very nice. She washed my feet and I got cold Ginseng tea, which was amazing!
Afterwards, I decided to jump on the free shuttle down to Kamala beach. Immediately when you get down there, one of the first things you notice is all the tsunami and earthquake signs. In 2004, if anyone remembers the huge Tasmania/earthquake that hit that part of the world, I think it was when that model died...? Anyway, Phuket got a direct hit. There was a memorial statue on the beach that as huge, as well as numerous very detailed routes for tourists, locals, and vehicles to get out of the beach in case of a weather emergency. Kind of scary. The beach had normal shops along the road, just like any other beach town. However, there were actual stores ON the beach, as in on the sand. They had restaurants with picnic tables on the Beach and massage parlors and tourist group stands. The whole beach from end to end of the Kamala bay was covered in lounge chairs with umbrellas you paid some guy walking up and down wiping the sand off of to use for an hour or so. I couldn't pay to use a beach chair, that's just wrong, so I settled for the towel in the sand. The water was PERFECT. There was no shells or coral or anything, just sand and clear water. IT was very calm. The beaches in Phuket are all in bays, so its pretty sheltered from the ocean waves. It was beautiful! No fish though, but that's ok. I only stayed for a little, it was super hot and the sand was hot and I really wanted to go lie in the poo loungers :)
So I spent the rest of the day lying in the pool reading my book. Later in the afternoon, my elephant trekking taxi came to pick me up. I found this place on line, they had a good website and the guy I emailed to make the reservation was very nice. It was completely on the other side of the island (the long way) so it took about an hour to get there. The main roads are along the beach, so I got a very scenic drive through the more heavily touristed areas on the way to the elephants. My taxi driver was nice and pointed out lots of things for me. He even showed me where all the "ladies" and "Lady boys" liked to hang out, a infamous trait in Thai culture. It all looked like boardwalk-type shops, all of it. Obviously no locals lived anywhere near this and sadly I didn't get to see how any locals lived. There wasn't even any religious houses anywhere on the Beach, which I thought was odd for this region. It was all dedicated to tourists. IT was the end of high season, so the streets were packed!
We got to the elephant place, after we drove by a few other elephant places, I Realized the one I found online wasn't as unique and special as I thought. Within 2 minutes or arriving, I was sitting on a strapped on bench which was on top of an elephant. You ride shoeless because your feet touch her neck (mine was a 51 year old female). The guide rode on the elephants neck with his feet dangling over her face. He had this really scary looking hook (like an ice pick) that he would gently scratch the elephant with or swat (not hard) at her body to get her moving. She liked to stop and try to eat the grass., even though their rest area was covered in food lol. She had to stop a couple times for the bathroom, as I learned elephants can't walk and "go" as horses do. Elephants walk slow and hit the ground hard, so it was a very bumpy ride. We talked through a rubber farm, where there was lots of bark slitted trees dripping rubber into pots.
On the way home, my driver stopped me at this famous overlook to take photos. You could see the crescents of 3-4 different beaches all the way up the coast for an hour to my beach. IT was amazing! IT was so hot so it was a bit hazy out, but it was still awesome. On top of a hill way in the distance was a huge white Buddha towering over the tree tops. I googled it later after taking a photo. About 10 years ago, some people hiked up to the hill top and could see basically the whole south part of the island, including a what would become very famous sunset point for the island. They decided to build a Buddha monument there, so they imported Burmese white marble and built a 25m tall statue that can be seen from almost anywhere on the south of the island. They call him Giant Buddha.
I spent the rest of the evening watching the sunset from my hotel and woke up the next morning for an uneventful trip back home. IT was a great vacation!!! I have 2 more weeks of school left and 5 until I come home! I'll be away form the blog probably for these two weeks, well, next weekend I'm off to Indonesia. Good Friday is a holiday here, so we have Thurs-Mon in Java (Island where Jakarta is in Indonesia). And then my 8 day long escapade in Cambodia!!!!!!!!!!
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