Muang Sing River Kwai Elephant Park and Village

 On our short Thai adventure we also had an opportunity to do a bit of elephant wrangling.  Muang Sing River Kwai Elephant Park and Village is only about 10 minutes from the Tiger Temple.  As our day was so jammed packed we only had time to do a bit of a trek through the jungle alongside the River Kwai.  There seemed to be a lot of other things on offer like one day training programs where you can be a mahout for the day, washing and feeding the elephants.  It was too short of a visit for us for me to really get a feel for village.  I was a bit taken aback when towards the end of our trek the mahouts stopped and offered for sale what appeared to be jewellery made from ivory!  Not too sure what to make of that.  We of course, declined.  Having said all of that, it was a fun hour or so and we all enjoyed it.

Will you just look at the size of the elephant Quiddy and I rode!  Apparently he is 40 years old and the biggest one in the park.  Seriously, he was enormous!

Scarlett tells us that the highlight of the whole day was when she got to "drive" the elephant.

Quiddy was happy to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

This bit was a little hairy.  The picture does not really show it but this was very steep.  We were hanging on for dear life.

The mahouts took us through the village where they all live.  Our guy stopped outside his little hut and his wife came out with some bananas for our elephant.   Loving the satellite dishes!

Time for a refreshing bathe in the river.  Half their luck!

As mentioned our visit was a little rushed and I would have like to have had a bit more of a look around.  I can't remember what we paid but I do recall it being very reasonable.  To finish off you are given fruit and water and a wet towel with a place to sit down so they can try and flog you the digital photos they have taken of you that they have printed off and framed already!  We more or less had to leg it out of there as I had an appointment with some hungry tiger cubs.