Amy Laughinghouse Hits the Road

One Sweet Ride: Forget flat tires. Just hold onto your (Boa) Thong.  

My mahout, Leim, with Boa-Thong

Phang Nga, Thailand–How do you mount an elephant? It is not, as you might imagine, a conundrum I’ve often considered, but as I survey the vast acreage of a 6,500 pound female at an elephant camp in Phang Nga, I realize this is not going to be a walk in the park.

In fact, it’s supposed to be 90 minute-long ramble along a dirt and gravel road threading through a rubber plantation a few miles inland from Thailand’s famous golden beaches.

A mahout—as the elephant guides are known—makes it look easy, of course.

How do you mount an elephant? Well, you can wine her and dine her and take her to a movie–or skip the courtship and simply scamper up one of these wooden structures to hop in her basket.

Using the animal’s bended knee as a step, he’ll swing himself up, Tarzan-like, with a rope. Fortunately for greenhorns like myself, Sairung Elephant Camp—where half a dozen mahouts squat in the shade of primitive huts, their laundry flapping damply in the humid breeze–provides a wooden platform the approximate height of the elephant, allowing you to step right onto the back of your ride.

My husband, Scott, sensibly ensconces himself on a bench strapped upon the back of our lumbering beast, Boa-Thong (which I believe is Thai for “tiny underwear”), and while it would easily accommodate two, I’ve decided I want the “real” experience, riding on Boa-Thong’s neck.

Gingerly, I scoot forward until I’m planted just behind her ears—and instantly regret it. (more…)