Continued from yesterday”¦ At the halfway point, the trainer offered to take some pictures. He got off and took a couple photos of us. Then he encouraged Eric to sit on the elephant’s neck. Eric slid off the bench and onto her neck. The elephant walked only about 10 feet, and Eric commented that staying on was a little bit tricky. The trainer instructed Eric to go back to the bench and Christi to move to the neck. After a few more photos, Christi expected to slide back on the bench. Instead, the trainer instructed the elephant to continue on. The path narrowed and began to descend.

Christi thought Eric’s comment about staying balanced being tricky was an understatement. Neither of us have ever ridden bareback on a horse, so we may not know what we are talking about, but it seems on a horse it would be fairly easy to wrap your arms around its neck and your legs around its belly. Not so on the elephant. When Christi tried to wrap her legs around the elephant’s neck, they just got in the way of the elephant’s ability to walk. The head was much too big for Christi to wrap her arms around, so she wound up leaning on the poor girl’s head with her full body weight. She was worried that she was hurting the poor thing, but the elephant didn’t seem to mind. The elephant continued to amble along. There were a few times Christi was worried she may fall off, but by the time we pulled back in, she had become more comfortable with the elephant’s motion and was feeling a bit more confident. The trainer was following along shouting commands to the elephant. Jennifer, Ron, Koy, and Koy’s wife all looked very surprised when we pulled up and they saw Christi at the helm.

The elephant ride is adjacent to a bar, and everyone was waiting for us there. There was a monkey hanging out in the trees, a different species than we have seen since arriving in Asia. As we were leaving, we saw a second one hiding under the foundation of the bar.

We continued north along the coast to Patong Beach, the party center of Phuket. Along the road, we saw several people driving elephants, which we got a kick out of.

The more we see of Phuket, the more and more it reminds us of Bali. There are more desolate areas, like the north of Bali, nicer resort areas, like Nusa Dua, and more touristy centers, like Kuta. It is hilly, with jungle in the background, and instead of rice fields it is rubber trees. Even a lot of the décor is similar, but in Bali everything is definitely more ornate. And in Phuket there is more variety in architecture style than we saw in Bali.

Koy dropped us off in Patong and told us to call him when we were ready to be picked up. We wandered down Patong Beach Road, which parallels the water. One side of the street is a nice looking beach with pretty ocean views. The other side of the street has an interesting mix of very modern little shopping complexes featuring stores like Starbucks and Haagen Daaz, just like what you would see in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and rows of small vendor stalls selling assorted junk like you see in tourist areas of third world countries. We would describe it as a cross between Tijuana, Mexico and New Orleans. We are sad to report that our camera battery died, so we didn’t get any pictures of Patong.

We turned the corner onto Bang La Road, infamous for being a red light district. It is colorful and brightly lit with neon signs. Just a few feet down the block, there were five “ladyboys” standing on the sidewalk trying to entice people to come into their bar. Ladyboys are drag queens, which are pretty common in areas of Thailand that get a lot of tourists. The ladyboys are all absolutely beautiful and you really cannot tell they are men. They were all dressed in outrageously flamboyant costumes — one in a hot pink feathered bikini with tails; one in a similar red sequenced bikini and tails; one in a gold lamay bikini top, matching tiny sarong and giant feathered headdress; one in a gold lamay evening gown, and another in a demure evening gown with huge feathered headdress. We sat at a bar across the way and watched the “girls” for a while. Inside the bar, a couple more plainly dressed “girls” were dancing on tables and trying to get people off the street to join in. Sadly our camera battery died and we have no photos.

As we continued down the street, we saw tons of “go go” bars where the women inside danced in lingerie. Pornography is illegal, so none of the girls are supposed to expose body parts normally covered by an American bathing suit, but Ron demonstrated for us that it isn’t too hard to find bars where the law is broken. There were people outside some of the go go bars showing the menu of dances you could order from the girls inside the bar. In between, there were a few more drag queen bars, a few restaurants, and lots and lots of regular bars. At several of the bars you could play a game with the female bartenders to see who could drive a nail into a piece of wood the fastest. Eric and Ron both tried, and were defeated by the bartenders. Ron commented that this area has really toned down, with less red-light types of bars and more restaurants geared at a family crowd. The streets were packed with people, mostly tourists.

Once we had walked around a little, we were ready to go. Jennifer lives in Patong, so we said our goodbyes to her for the night and called Koy to pick us up. Fortunately, the dinghy was floating happily right where we left her. Even more fortunately, the wind had died so we had an easy ride back. Shortly after returning, the wind picked up to 10 knots and the dinghy started banging again. Eric did some more adjusting and thinks he may have finally solved the problem now.