Sa Wa Dee Ca

So i have now spent a week with the elephants. Sorry for not being in contact for such a long time, there is no internet where i am staying, its a really remote rural village about an hours drive from the nearest town. i met the group back in bangkok and then we headed out to surin on a night bus. we are staying in homestay with a local family who are so sweet and friendly but speak absolutely no english so we have to speak thai to them which is interesting! i have been living off rice and noodles all week, it is nice but gets a bit samey, but its inclusive in the price i paid for the project so i cant complain. on the first day we were introduced to our elephants, we have one between 2.. except me and ryan have 2 because our 2 elephants (thai thai and leo) are inseperable. its so cute. we thought they were father and son at first because thai thai is the smallest in the herd and leo is the biggest, but turns out they are just best mates! they look so funny next to eachother. we have been riding them and have washed them in the river which was absolutely amazing, they all have such big personalities and i could just watch them for hours. we have also been doing general maintenance work around the camp, stripping sugar cane and then cutting it with a machete, ploughing the fields and planting, and then feeding and cleaning out the elephants. everyone in the group gets along really well which is good. and unbelievably, we happen to have come to the village on the weekend that our group leaders brother is getting married, so we are all invited to the wedding! that starts tonight and goes on all day sunday so i cant wait for that. a few nights ago we went camping by the river with the mahouts which was amazing. oh i havent explained about the mahouts, basically they are the elephant trainers and there is one per elephant so we all have a mahout sort of teaching us about the elephants and looking after our safety and stuff. so yeah we went camping with them, had a huge camp fire and cooked corn and had sticky rice and loads of samsun which is the rum they drink out here. and they caught fish in the river and cooked them on the fire. it was so fun. had one scary moment the other day when the elephants got a bit overexcited and a few of them started stampeeding along the road, including the one i was sitting on! my face must have been a treat. but anyway the mahouts got control of them and it was all fine, no need to worry. the village is really religious so we have seen a few buddhist ceremonies, one was a sort of funeral but for a monk and a year after he had been buried, they dig him up and have a ceremony and everyone stands around his bones and then they burn him. i didnt really enjoy that one to be honest. but we also had this really nice forgiveness ceremony where the mahouts tied these orange bracelets around our wrists and said anything they were sorry for (kind of like catholic confessions) and then they threw all the flowers into the river to symbolise getting rid of all the bad spirits. we have the weekend off this weekend to go to the wedding so we are staying in a guesthouse in the centre of surin, air conditioning and a proper shower is a bit of a treat! back in our homestay there is just a massive water resevoir and you use a bucket and pour the water over your head, which is nice and refreshing after a long morning in the fields! so anyway, theres a brief outline of all the stuff i have been getting up to in the past week. i'm having an amazing time. but miss you all lots and lots. love to everyone x