Once again, woken early by the cockerels, counted my growing mozzie bites and had breakfast.
Back to the fields to cut more bamboo, this time it seemed much easier!! Getting a dab hand at the machete, quite professional really. We had a few hours chill time, the ice cream man arrived and all the village children appeared when they heard that free icecreams were being offered by the nice ladies in the homestay. Some were in a bread bun starting with sticky rice, scoops of coconut ice cream, topped with coloured rice and condensed milk, others in cornets or tubs.
After lunch, we met up with our elephants again and walked them to the river again. Found out that she was called So Wha and had never had a baby. This time on the way back, she played by squirting me and the mahout in turn and flapped her ears in pleasure. We thought that experience would never be surpassed…..how wrong we were!! Eight of us went to the other group’s homestay before tea to have a full Thai massage. Great organisation- arrived to find 7 mattresses on the floor and 3 of them already bagged. 2 more mattresses laid down and a couple more local women dragged away from their chores to come and help out. BB got his turn, hadn’t appreciated how flexible he was! The lady with an enormous grin descended upon me and placed me in various positions I didn’t imagine I would ever have found myself in, with a woman standing on my back as if I was a trampled grape. Hobbling back to the truck we clambered in holding the large pots of curry for our tea.
Unfortunately, I filled my plate up back at the homestay with this lovely looking red curry thinking it was like the other nights massaman curry – oh no, that was a fire in a bowl. Consequently, after a litre of water, my ears stopped steaming and I found a bag of crisps instead.
Rambling With Ruthie 