Elephant trekking

On Thursday we did a half day of elephant trekking. Stephen and I were on one elephant and Ben and Christy were on a different one. Our elephant was named Bida ( bee- da) and he was awesome. Both of our elephants had a guide but for some reason ours kept leaving. Everytime he did Bida would stop and eat some trees or get down in the river. It was hilarious, as soon as the guide came back he would get back on the trail. We did this for couple hours and then headed on to koh tao.

To get there we did an overnight ferry. It had mattresses that were about 15 inches wide with no space between them. Poor Ben ended up next to a girl with bed bug bites on her. Luckily, we didn't get any and we all actually managed to get some sleep.

The boys were gracious enough to give us girls the inside

In koh tao we took a very scary "taxi" ride in the back of a pick up down an unfinished road to a little bay called tanote bay. It was well worth the trip. There was a big rock about 40 feet high that Ben and Stephen jumped off. They were really brave, we watched several people climb up, look over, and climb back down. Stephen set up the hammock for me, and then Christy and I read on the beach. Afterwards we rented snorkel gear and did some of the coolest snorkeling we had seen all trip.

Our hotel was one of the coolest places we stayed at. It had a beautiful room with a patio and the hotel was right off a cliff overhanging. There were two pools and an outdoor restaraunt that we tried out that had amazing views.

The next morning we woke up and explored the area a little more. We actually found a little pizza shop that had some of the best pizza I have ever had. Afterwards we took a ferry and an overnight bus back to Bangkok. After having traveled overnight by train, ferry, and bus, I think train is the way to go, although other people in the group would disagree.