Elephant Village

Saturday was the moment i had been waiting for! The day to ride an elephant FINALLY arrived, and i couldn't have been more excited! It was a surreal experience, rolling back and forth on Hotong's (ivory) back as if i where on an enormous horse, leaning back for dear life as we went down steep slopes at an attempt to stay on, and realizing the reason why we felt we where falling was because the little seat buckle came undone. Their skin is like a use mass of leather-dried hide that is extremely thick and covered with course dark hairs, i took off my shoes during the ride and it was well worth it! I do feel the animals are well taken care of at Elephant Village, but i feel the need to get on my soap box and question why this poor baby boy elephant was unable to desist dancing around. He is the show elephant. But he didn't seem to do anything natural to an elephant's behavior. Seriously, he never stood still and was constantly doing his little dance move ot try and lure tourists over to his tip box which he tactfully tapped with his trunk. I watched his show of playing the harmonica, hoola hooping, painting, and sitting down; yet the whole time i had an immense feeling of guilt and pity for being the reason this animal was subjected to this kind of life. Looking into his eyes...it seemed as if he were on some kind of drug, they were not connected, yellowed and just void of expression. Now i realize this may just be "elephant eyes" but it just didn't sit right with me. It was painful to take the images that i did, and i immediately regretted doing so.