Elephant Rides and Big Damn Spiders

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008. Today we decided to purchase a group tour that included an elephant ride, an ox-cart ride, a visit to a “real” local village, a river raft ride, and a buffet lunch. We learned about this tour from some people we met in Phuket, and we were not disappointed.

First, we witnessed an elephant show. Specially trained elephants performed various tricks, ranging from painting to playing soccer to dancing. We took lots of video and pictures – make sure to check them out. Here’s the most popular one so far:

After the elephant show, it was time for an ox-cart ride up the hill. Let me state for the record that ox-carts have fallen out of popularity for a good reason – they’re very uncomfortable. Still, it was a memorable experience.

We rode an elephant back down the hill after our ox-cart ride, crossing through the river a few times. Our mighty elephant was amazing, but as Sara said it was a bumpy ride. Still, another great experience.

The high point of the day might have been lunch, but not because of the food. During the elephant show, Sara and I befriended some people from Colorado (shoutout to Jon and Michelle). We ate lunch together in an open-air pavilion, and our tour guide acted sort of weird when he noticed where we were sitting. At the time, I didn’t pay any attention to it.

This little guy was about 8 inches across…no joke. He was “hanging out” right above our heads.

However, after the meal was over and we were getting ready to leave, I looked up on the ceiling and said “OH. MY. GOD.”

A spider about 8″ across was resting in a web on the ceiling almost directly above our table. It had been there the whole time. According to our guide, this spider was quite poisonous (which seems obvious considering the skull and cross-bones like pattern on it’s back). As we looked around the pavilion some more, Sara and I noticed at least two more of these gargantuan s hanging above. We were creeped out, to say the least.

Another couple found a spider over their heads shortly after we found ours (we caused a little bit of a stir when we pointed it out to people). This one had just “shed” it’s old body…more creepiness.

Following our excitement, it was time to ride down the river. This was a pleasant experience for sure – very picturesque.

As Sara and I were riding back into Chiang Mai, we had a nice talk with Jon and Michelle (from Ft. Collins) about Thailand, travel, and the morality of using elephants for our own amusement. It was great to talk to someone new (Sara and I were getting tired of talking to each other), but it was also nice to meet some people we genuinely had a lot in common with.

Chiang Mai is quickly becoming our favorite destination in Thailand.