Thailand- day 30

Day 30 Tues 9/25
Day three was the most adventurous of the three. We woke up in the morning to elephants at the camp and almost immediately found ourselves hopping on their backs. Elephant skin was a little different than I expected, dry with rougher skin. We rode them down by the river and were able to get out of our seats and ride on the neck of the elephant for a while,which I thought was just terrifying. You could feel the muscles of the neck move side to side. We finished the elephants, got pictures of all of them, and ate breakfast. The helmets and life jackets came out for the white water rafting and we got some good group shots before bringing our rafts to the water. Maggie and I ended up on different rafts. Luckily, a few people in our group had waterproof cameras, which were really nice for shots rafting. We went through rapids and were able to swim in the muddy water in the stiller areas of the river. There was a spot in the river where the bamboo rafts were parked and we paddled over and jumped on them. The bamboo rafts were much longer than I expected, and we're long pieces of bamboo tied together. The rafting was exciting. The three day trek ended with lunch and an hour drive back. When we got back I immediately went to drop off my laundry and we took a dip in the pool, because we got a free night stay at the hostel we booked the excursion through. We said goodbye to Bente and her and William quickly got on a bus to their next destination. We spent the afternoon playing Unsako with Ronen and Shahar. We took a break to go to the night market, that was humongous with shopping, food, ladyboys, etc. everywhere. When we got back we continued our cards and Ido and Shir joined in as well. We had a fun late night down in the lobby of the hostel. The four of them started their twenty five hour fast for Yom Kippur at 5:30 and it was cool hearing about the reasoning behind fasting and experiencing them celebrating the holiday.