7.30.2011

a traveler's love letter... // kim from fill your well

 

While Chad and I are away wandering the streets of Brussels, London, Paris and beyond, I gathered some of my favorite bloggers and asked them to write a guest post/love letter to their favorite place on earth. These ladies are graciously babysitting my blog while I'm eating macaroons and taking postcard-worthy pictures of the Eiffel Tower + Big Ben. Thank you for reading and I'll see you when we get back! 

xo -- Amanda




hi there, this is kim from fill your well. i am so honored to be doing a guest post for amanda's sweet blog while she's off on her adventure! traveling is one of my favorite things and i'm still riding high on the greatest adventure of my life, which was my honeymoon in thailand last september. there are about a million different spots around the world that i can't wait to visit, but at this point, my absolute favorite spot is a little village about an hour north of bangkok. here i spent some time living and working among the mahouts {sort of like the thai version of a cowboy} on an elephant kraal {or ranch}. that's right, elephants!


now some boys, while planning a honeymoon, might think, "hmm... where should i take this beautiful lady of mine after our wedding? maybe someplace relaxing, maybe where there's a spa or a beach for lounging? yeah, that sounds nice." but not my boy. nope, he thought "where can i take this beautiful lady of mine where we can not only touch an elephant, but where we can feed, scrub, ride, and clean up after them?" not every girl gets to say she raked elephant dung out of a field on her honeymoon, but let me tell you, i wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

of course it wasn't all hard work. we got to ride our elephants through the village and down to the river where we swam with them in the cool water. we also got to play with the babies during our free time, who were pretty much the cutest things i've ever seen!


mornings were my favorite time on the kraal. we would wake up around 4:30am to a jungle full of life {don't worry, we were jet lagged so we didn't mind one bit}! i'd sip my morning tea while watching a one-armed monkey play lovingly with his pet rabbit and listen to the parrots sing "hello" in their australian accents, all while elephants meandered past by my door. we would spend the day caring for 6 retired she-elephants who had been assigned to us, then relaxing at night as powerful thunderstorms rolled in {it was monsoon season at the time so massive thunderstorms would blow in every evening, even taking out the power some nights... which isn't a problem at all when you're on your honeymoon}.

fun facts i learned living with elephants: did you know elephants talk to each other in such low tones that we can't hear it? we can, however, feel the rumbling of it in our bodies! and did you know elephants are so aware of our fragility, and love their caretakers so much, that they are extra gentle with all of us humans? how about the fact that they walk on their tippy toes so you don't hear them coming? these giant beasts would constantly sneak up on me like ninjas... enormous, big-eared ninjas, but ninjas all the same.


yes, it was by far the most amazing experience of my life, and i often wish i could pop back over on a weekly basis to get my elephant fix. not to mention, a food fix {oh the food!}, which was the best i've ever eaten anywhere - truth. oh if only it were a shorter flight!

5 comments:

marjorie rose said...

Hi Amanda! This is a great guest post from Kim. It is uniquely lovely!

P.S. Now I'm picturing ninja elephants :)

Teresa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Teresa said...

Lovely honeymoon, Kim!
I agree that you shouldn't do in honeymoon what you can do in good weekend ahahahahah, that's why we always look insanely young, fresh and fun in those pics.

Amanada don't hang too much with Kim, it could improve your life serious and unreversably ahahahah. Hope you're having an enchanted honeymoon.

ag. said...

ninja elephants! love it!
this is such a unique honeymoon...and so memorable!

mypixieblog said...

I love that this is how you spent your honeymoon. It sounds wonderfully dreamy and exotic... and I have a soft spot in my heart for elephants ever since reading "Water for Elephants" so I can picture myself here. Love the photos!

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