Safari Tour

Yesterday I did a half-day safari tour that was so much fun. Elephants and monkeys are not Tony's thing, so he didn't come along, but I went and had the time of my life. Enjoy the photos below!

This man trains monkeys to pick coconuts. The little female monkey below can pick 50 coconuts in a day.

Here she's enjoying a milk box before showing us her coconut-picking talents.

She picks the coconuts by spinning them until the stem breaks. Monkeys are trained to do it low to the ground first, then higher up with coconuts tied to a clothesline-level rope, and finally on trees.

See her there, spinning the coconut?

Afterwards, the tour guide, Kung, told us about water buffalo, but we mostly watched the monkey b/c she was so cute.

Here she is, just sitting and resting. After the water buffalo talk, we were supposed to sit on the buffalo and then take a ride in an ox cart, but we all wanted to spend more time with the monkey first.

This is Alan, an incredibly nice man from Australia. He and his wife, Sue, were so friendly and kind to me the whole tour. We sat together and chatted and took pictures of and for each other. Alan was quite a hit with the monkey.
Here's another lady on our tour, patting the little monkey as the monkey pats her arm back.

Unfortunately, this is my best Kodac moment with the monkey. Earlier she had come up and sat by me and gnawed on my camera strap while I petted her, but once the camera was directed at us, she'd lost interest in me.

Finally, Kung got us directed back on track, and we took turns sitting on the buffalo. Sue was such a good sport. When no one on the tour would volunteer to try something, she'd volunteer to get the ball rolling. She was first on the buffalo.

Here are Sue, Alan, and I on the ox cart. (I don't know why it looks like I'm raising my fist... I wasn't.)

The next part of the tour was about how to open coconuts and make coconut milk and oil. Here a lady uses a metal spear sticking up out of the ground to peel open the husk surrounding the coconut.

After peeling away the husk and breaking open the coconut with a hammer, she shaved off the meat inside using a traditional tool that is like a flat metal disk with sharp little needle-looking spikes sticking off the edges. The disk is bolted on the end of a low wooden stool. She sat on the stool and scraped the inside of the coconut against the sharp disk, and the meat scraped off onto the tray, which she'd placed on the ground below the disk. Here Kung squeezes the coconut meat to show us the milk, which is running down her hand.

Next we learned how to make coconut oil. They add water to the coconut meat and cook it over a fire in a big skillet for about 8 hours. After that, oil rises to the surface and a delicious brown caramelized crumbly stuff sinks to the bottom. They skim off the oil and use the crumbly stuff on the top of cakes and sweets.

Next we learned how to make Thai curry. They showed us all the spices you use and had us smell them and guess what they were. As best I remember, you start with the following spices: garlic, salt, black peppercorns, red chilies, turmeric, lime leaves, shallots, basil, lemongrass, and some stuff that's a milder version of ginger.
You put it all in a mortar and crush it with a pestle for 20 minutes. It looks like a lot of work! After that you have your spice mix, which you mix with water and cook with meat and veggies and then add some coconut milk. Yum...

Finally, it was time for the elephants! We started with the baby elephants. Here I am getting a kiss from one! They cleaned her little nose with a towel and then stuck her trunk to my face and pulled it away: SMOOOCH! I'd never had the entire side of my face kissed at once before.
Here I am getting my pic taken w/ a baby elephant. She is just grinning up a storm. :-)

People who wanted to buy fruit could feed the elephants. Sue and Alan bought a basket of fruit and shared it with me so that I could feed the elephants, too. Here I'm feeding watermelon to a baby elephant. You have the snap that camera fast b/c the elephants snap up the fruit immediately as you get in reach.

Next we went on an elephant trek with the big elephants. Here's a lovely view from the trail.

This is my elephant. She was born in 1963, and her name is Namsai.

Here I am on Namsai.

Here are Alan and Sue on their elephant.

This is my elephant guide. He was a cool guy; I felt pretty lucky to have one of the best elephant guides. He took us apart from the others a little bit and also gave my camera to another elephant guide so he could take my pic on the elephant. He and that guide were the only ones who did that for their riders. It was really nice and saved me from buying the photo that the tour itself took of me on the elephant.

Here's my favorite pic of the day: me on an elephant. So fun!