I avoided tap water and unpeeled fruit though. The pineapples and mangos are wonderful, unlike any I have ever eaten before, but OJ is poor - polluted, excuse me, fortified with artificial flavors and color. Elephants are used as work animals in rural Thailand, carrying timber or doing heavy farmwork. They are a tourist staple too. They mount a wooden saddle on an iron frame on the back for two people to sit, while the driver, a small boy in my case, sits right on the bare head of the elephant, guiding it with his feet behind the elephant's ears.
Elephants walk with slow, pondering, pounding steps, up and down hills on narrow paths.
We rode for an hour until we got to the end of the trail. From there, we continued hiking up the hill to visit hill tribes. We also passed some small rivers and a waterfall, where some people went swimming. The water is very warm, but in some places, especially still water, one can catch quite interesting diseases such as small worms that burrow through the skin and swim to the liver where they live happily everafter, so I skipped that opportunity. The final item on the agenda was river rafting.