ELEPHANTS!!!

As it had been throwing it down with rain almost constantly since we arrived, we had already pretty much given in to the fact that it would most likely be raining when we were going to spend the day outside with the elephants. We got up at around 6 and went for breakfast. Yes it was raining, but luckily it's was only a drizzle, then we went to meet our guide for the day who drove us to the Elephant Valley Project site. For the first part of the day there was just one other Australian couple with us. After telling us about the history of the project, and where the money from visitors went, we began the hike down the valley where we met a group of 4 elephants.

We followed them around as they took baths in the river and continuously munched their way through the greenery. The project are currently look after 11 elephants in total all who have been taken there to retire from hard working lives. Some of their stories we were told were really heartbreaking but it was so nice seeing them finally in their natural environment. A couple of the elephants are actually quite famous in Cambodia as they had worked for so long with the public in the busy tourist spots.

You could really see the effects that came from this. It's not actually natural for elephants to carry so much weight on their backs, which is what they were primarily used for and still are in some villages. The pressure causes their rib cage to compress pushing their spines up. Even carrying tourists around all day in the baskets does this to them. Some even had the ends of their tails cut off because of the value of the hair :(

After following them around for a few hours we headed to base camp where we had lunch with all of the other groups who were volunteering. We had time for a rest and to dry out, then headed back out to meet some of the other elephants. The sun came out for the rest of the day right up until 5 minutes before we got back to the van. It rained, this time torrential and we were soaked. It wouldn't be so bad, but trying to dry everything after is just impossible.

It was such a good day, and although it was definitely on the pricey side, we would recommend it to anyone. We'd also recommend never taking elephant rides at tourist spots!

That evening we started to feel the effects from the long day, and by that I mean from the insects bites :( Sean had on shorts and I had on full length leggings and I still managed to get bit so much more than him. I've honestly never had bites like it before. It was agony. My legs were covered in them and they were huge! Even putting on antihistamine cream didn't fully stop the itching. Eventually I found out that toothpaste was the only thing that stopped them itching.

From Mondulkiri we had to get the bus back to Phnom Penh to then move on. We originally wanted to go to Sihanoukville, a beach and island area at the south of Cambodia but there had been continuous storms there for over a week so we decided to by pass it and booked a sleeper bus to go straight through to Thailand. It didn't leave until 10pm so we left our bags at the hotel and spent the day in a restaurant at the riverfront drinking 75cent beers.

In total the journey took about 16 hours. 8 hours on the sleeper bus, 3 hours crossing the border (the majority of that time queuing at immigration), then another 5 hours in a minivan, then 20 minutes in a tuktuk. The past couple of weeks took it out of us a bit so we decided to stop here in Pattaya which is a couple of hours out of Bangkok before heading in to mainland Thailand. It's a really quiet city in comparison to where we've been, with lots of beach resorts, but we decided to treat ourselves and book a hotel with a pool so needless to say where we spent all day yesterday and today. Might as well make full use of it :)

We're staying here 3 nights then probably going to Bangkok. So excited to finally be in Thailand!

:)