Today we headed off to spend some time with the lovely folk at Siam Safari. After a seemingly endless minibus ride to their departure point, made more painful by the two Aussie bogans we picked up along the way (they'd slept in and hadn't had time for breakfast but he still found time for a cigarette - what a champ), our delightful guide Brani loaded us into the back of an army green four wheel drive safari truck, thankfully sans bogans, and we set off into the jungle.
First off was a baby elephant show, which was okay. We then wandered down and got to ride elephants through the jungle for half an hour. They sat us two to an elephant plus a mahout - the elephant's keeper and "driver". Mahouts are from the Karon tribe and seemed to have a really beautiful symbiotic relationship with their elephants, steering them by nudging them behind the ears with their bare feet.
[Very fat people please note: you get to ride the elephant alone... for obvious reasons. -Pet]
After the elephant ride we saw a brief display of how they extract rubber from rubber trees and press it into rubber sheets using a couple of old rollers. Brani, being the super tour guide she was, even managed to toss in an elephant condom joke while she was at it. What a gal!
We then wandered down to the coconut hut, where we were shown how to grate a coconut, squeeze it for its milk, then boil the mil to separate it for its oil. Pet bought her self a bottle of the oil for medicinal purposes, only to discover later it solidified in the cool aircon of our resort room!
Next up was a display of Thai curry cooking, by a woman Brani made a point of announcing was 40 years old. She showed us all the fresh herbs used in the curry cooked when courting - kaffir lime leaves, shallots, fresh tumeric, galangal, lemon grass root, garlic, sea salt, black peper and one other thing which we can't remember the name of. She tossed it all into a mortar and pestle, then began mashing it all up while a five year old Japanese boy danced to the beat. She then cut to the chase and handed us a sample of the completed curry with rice. The smells were amazing and the food delicious.
We then heard about the buffalo and their role in Thai farming. Pet took a picture of me sitting on a big bull buffalo - I felt about ten years old! This was followed by a monkey show, where we got to watch a monkey at work picking coconuts. The monkeys live and work with their human families - kind of like Thai farm dogs. Not! Pet was lucky enough to take an amazing close up picture of the monkey! Oh, and Brani also made a point of introducing the monkey's trainer as being 45 years old. No secrets when Brani's around!
Then it was lunch - a Thai buffet which was delicious. We've really eaten some fantastic food since we've been here!
After that they bundled us back onto the trucks, sent us back to what passes for civilisation and then onto our minibus back to the resort to find our pal Ting working hard as always. Keep up the good work, Ting!
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