Yo,

Today was the second day of my trek in Kanchanaburi. In the morning I headed up to the elephant camp with a polish guy and english guy who were staying at the guest house. We got to ride the elephants and then take them into the river for a bath.

This was a pretty fantastic experience. Getting the hang of staying on wasn't too hard although when the elephants walked down a steep hill holding on was a challenge. When they went into the water we had to shout to the guides, who didn't speak much english, that we had cameras and phones on us. They used their elephant sticks to hang our stuff up on a treet so it didn't get wet.

Once in the water the guides shouted commands to the elephants to get them to duck under the water and roll over etc. Apparently its true that an elephant never forgets, they learn by emulation and can be taught about 50 verbal commands. A bathing elephant is a bity lick a bucking broncho and you can only stay on for so long. Once you are off the challenge isn't so much getting back on as fighting the very strong current in the river.

We rode the elephants back to the camp after they'd had their bath and then we headed back to camp for lunch. Next stop was the tiger temple which is a Tiger sanctuary run by monks. The tigers are pretty amazing close up and the monks seem to have them under control.

Not much more to tell about today, other than I'm really tired and hungry so heading back to camp for dinner now. Tomorrow we are going diving at a waterfall and after that who knows. I am supposed to head back to bangkok tomorrow but might hang about here abit longer as therer are some things I haven't done yet and I can;t decided where I want to be after. Thinking about either heading up to Chang Mai or down to Ko Chang. Met a guy today who was telling me there are some fantastic mountain roads in Ko Chang which are good to motorbike round. Given bike hire is so cheap here (2 pounds a day) I have got another one today so going to ride back to camp now.