Elephants, Floating Market, and Cobras Oh My!

After hanging out with Busking Polyglot, I met up with the Indefatigable Peacemaker after not seeing her for five years. She was traveling with her friend, the Calm Abecedarian.

Elephants

My favorite activity in Thailand was riding on elephants

This was my elephant

He was stubborn and at first would only walk a couple steps before demanding bananas.

Holding a bunch of bananas. We preferred the carrots over sticks
form of motivation

When he would lift up his trunk, it meant he was hungry. I tried to feed
him one banana at a time, but he would only eat them by the bunch.

My favorite tactile experience of my entire five-month odyssey was feeling
the elephants ears swat against my feet

We walked over land and through water

And passed by many of his fellow elephants:

Despite the chains, the animals seemed to be well taken care of and I didn’t witness any brutality. It’s hard to know what is really going on as a tourist. 

Hiya!

Riding an elephant was like riding any big animal: bumpy and slow. I can't say that I would want to do it every day and it me appreciate that we have cars and roads to get places quickly. However, there is something magical about meandering across land and sea on a giant beast. The world is full of so many wonders and it's such a privilege to be able to travel and have unique experiences like riding an elephant.

Floating market 

More commonly spelled Damnoen Saduak, the market we went to claims to
be the oldest floating market.

To get there, we had to ride a small motor boat that felt like it was going to tip over at any point

A floating market is a market where trade is conducted between boats.

There are boats selling many different types of goods

Of course there is a beer boat

The boats are propelled by local paddlers

Sometimes the boats have extra help

With lots of tourists, you can get caught up in rush hour traffic

In addition to the boats, there are lots of things to see on the shops next to the water

Would you want to pay to wear that around your neck?

It's amazing that so much of the world's travel was conducted over waterways. Even today, a huge portion of America's imports come across the ocean. It's also amazing how many different goods were available at this market, much less the grocery store. Every banana was grown on a banana plantation. The wood used to be trees that subsequently were cut down, worked on by a carpenter, and then transported to the market. It takes a lot of people in different roles to "make the world go 'round".

Cobra show

At the end of the day, I went to a cobra show. I liked seeing the animals around the show, especially the monitor lizards.

The snakes were cool to look at too

Snakes on snakes on snakes

I didn’t like the show itself because I felt that it was cruel treatment towards animals. It's hard to be somewhere and know that what is going on is wrong, but not be able to do anything about it since you already paid your entrance fee. Even though PETA is crazy, I'm glad that some people are advocating on behalf of animals.

They had a mongoose fight a snake, but had removed the animals' fangs
and venom so they could actually hurt each other. It must have been terrifying
for both animals.

Showing that the snakes they used could produce venom

The handlers were quite talented and were adept at diving out of the way of attacks

The most impressive guy caught one snake in each hand and
then caught a third snake with his mouth

I did like learning new things like how anti-venom is made