Chillin' Mahout ~ Mae Tang

The Elephant Parks in Thailand are filled with activities from elephant riding, elephant bathing to bamboo rafting.
While some mahouts entertain the public with elephants playing football, others get ready to take the tourists through a jungle on the back of the melancholic pachyderms. And eventually have a deserved break!
Most of these mahouts work long hours and even have to skip lunch to occupy the demanding tourists.

I saw this Thai mahout smoking a cigarette while watching the tourists clapping enthusiastically at the elephants painting flowers. I loved his style and pose!

Elephant Ride ~ Mae Tang

When I was invited to the Mae Tang Elephant Park, I participated to many of their activities including elephant shows, elephant bathing, bamboo rafting and of course, elephant rides!

I had to test it and well... It's not the most comfortable ride I've had. Only camels are probably worse. I preferred the stoic oxen pulling their carts on a muddy road.
It's also a real challenge to take sharp photos while riding those pachyderms. I had to increase my ISO, put my camera on continuous mode and shoot away! One over a dozen shots should be sharp enough to work with!
So the mahout (trainer) took us for a 30min ride across the jungle while stopping from time to time at these towers (this one on the photo was broken and abandoned) to push us to buy bananas or sugar cane to feed the elephant.
The trick is to refuse every time, the mahout will get a few sugar canes/bananas for free to feed the animal anyway... they don't want an angry and hungry beast wrecking havoc through the jungle!

Well, although it doesn't seem like it, I still enjoyed the ride and would probably do it again, just for the fun! (Do not think about motion sickness..).