This past weekend may well have been the absolute best 48 straight hours I've spent in Thailand. The only part that wasn't perfect was that it ended.

With 8 of the other English teachers I know here in Bangkok, we went to Kanchanaburi for the weekend (a little over an hour west of Bangkok) a little hippy-ish town on the banks of the river Kwai. It was a perfect town, with delicious restaurants, outdoor bars, easy access to amazing adventures AND I got to sleep on a raft floating in the river!

On Saturday we went to see the waterfalls that the area is known for; seven waterfalls of varying sizes all along one upward trek. Each one has a pool to swim in and rocks to clamber about on. There are fish in the waters that nibble the dead skin off your feet (something you can pay for in Bangkok as a tourist attraction!). I slid down a natural rock slide and spent about an hour tanning on a fallen log over the waterfall, while butterflies walked all over me. One butterfly literally sat on my nose for about 10 minutes (they didn't love on any one else, just me. it was awesome.).

We didn't make it the entire way up to the 7th waterfall because clouds rolled in and it started to pour. We hiked back down the mountain, splashing in mud, getting soaking wet (but we'd been swimming, so getting wet wasn't much of a problem) and marveling as the entire path seemed to turn into one long, muddy waterfall.

I was starving by the time we got back to town, so a friend and I went out to dinner and found a tiny little cafe serving thai food and white wine. I hadn't had a glass of wine in weeks, so that, accompanied by an amazingly delicious massaman curry made for a pretty fabulous dinner. Which was followed by drinks with more of our friends and the chance to make new friends at a couple of the little outdoor bars around the main road.

The next day was even better. I woke up early-ish to find a group of my friends getting ready to go on some elephant adventure. They weren't quite sure what they were getting into, but we'd met a Thai guy the night before who told us all about this place and said he could take us there. So of course, without knowing what on earth I was getting into, I went.

Five of my friends and a Spanish guy we met on the way all climbed into the back of a pickup truck with our Thai friend from the night before. We drove about an hour into the countryside, past fields of grasses, herds of skinny cows with big ears, surrounded by the rounded peaks of gorgeous green mountains. Turned out we were headed to a place called Elephant World which is a refuge for older elephants who used to work but have been injured or simply gotten to old. It is not a tourist destination, its more of a non-profit do-good magical place. We were not only the only white people there, we were the only people there who didn't work/live there. It was paradise. There were five elephants in the field and Day, our guide, led us to each one, told us a little about them and let us feed them bananas. the elephants would reach out to us with their trunks and take a banana (still in its peel) out of our hands. But I also put a banana in an elephant's mouth and got to feel how remarkably rough its big pink tongue is!

We did a little bit of work (which was more fun than actual work) going out into the fields to chop down the grasses the elephants would eat that day - with machetes!! and then delivering and feeding that glass to the elephants.

After the elephants had eaten, we went swimming in the river to cool off.

AND THEN the workers brought the elephants into the river, so they could cool off too. So I swam with the elephants. And I got to climb up onto them as they swam in the river. I brushed the dirt off their faces with a scrub brush. I held on as they swam underwater.

The elephants seemed to love the water. They squirted it out of their trunks, and on the command of the Thai guys who live/work there they would try to buck us off their backs, going under water and flipping around. Attempting to cling to an elephant's head using only my knees and my hands on its ears as it rolled into the water is officially one of the most difficult things I've ever done. And one of the most fun.

When the elephants were done swimming they all went for a walk in the woods and we dried off, packed up, and headed back to the city so we could eat and then catch a bus back to Bangkok. The van ride home was pretty tame, but it was fun to meet up with the rest of our friends and hear about how they'd spent their day (with tigers!). There is no doubt in my mind I'll be headed back to Kanchaburi again, I want to do it all over again and more.

I'll try and get some pictures of it all up later this week, but suffice it to say that this was an absolutely splendid and magical weekend. And it only got better when I got home to find two big wonderful packages of goodies waiting for me at the front desk of my building.

Thank you!!