Elephant Sanctuary, part 3: Taking a Bath

While we were feeding the elephants, the park opened and many other people came in.   They had all been riding an elephant  on an extremely small loop which they were only able to go on once.  When we’d finished the feeding, Razali asked us if we wanted to take the ride, but we said no.  Then he said we could ride an elephant into the water.  Everybody else got to do it, too.  Razali told us to go to platform 3 and wait for it to start, which would be in about 10 minutes.  When we got to platform 3, two women were already there waiting.  Mom, Dad, Daniel, Edward and I  were all going to go in.  Dad said he wanted to stay behind and take a picture.  The women let us cut in front of them in line because we were not sure how many people were allowed on an elephant at a time.  Finally, it was time to swim.   We were all swimming with our clothes on.  The workers let 6 people get on the elephant at a time, so us and the 2 women were able to go on together.  I was in the front of the elephant.  The elephant took 2 steps in the water, then tipped over!  Mom, Daniel, Edward, me and the 2 women fell into the water!  Even though the water was very shallow, we all dunked.  Some other workers were keeping 2 baby elephants on their sides in the water.  The workers told us to pick up sand from the bottom of the river and spread it on the elephants skin.  By doing so, the sand would scratch the elephants.  The elephants liked it when you scratched them because it probably felt like when your Mom gives you a back-scratch!  The river was very shallow and cool and it felt very good and refreshing on a hot day like that!

Mom got out first, but us kids got to stay in about 10 minutes longer.  When it was time to get out we saw Dad sitting on an elephant, waiting for his turn in the river.  I got out just in time to see Dad tip over off the elephant.  That was a very, very, very funny sight to see!  Dad got out and told us that he had almost got stuck because his leg was caught in the elephant’s ear when he was underwater!  We all laughed at this!  We quickly went back over to Razali who was leading the elephants out of the river.  He had a bottle filled with the last bit of elephant food.  He gave the bottle to one of the elephants as her reward for swimming in the river.  She held the bottle with her trunk while we got to pat her cheeks.  

That was an outstanding day and our elephant adventure was over.