Once on the island, we took a songthaew along a winding mountain-road. We found a guesthouse and celebrated our arrival in the rain. Later we found a dead puppy washed up on the beach.










We slept through the rainstorm that shook our bungalow on its wooden stilts and were picked up in the morning for our scheduled elephant jungle trek. Although Ko Chang means elephant island, it's named thus because its shape is thought to resemble an elephant's head. The elephants on the island were transported there, and the camp we visited is a type of sanctuary to them.

We rode our caravan through the jungle. I distinctly remember the stiff elephant hairs under my feet, the rough, fatty feeling of its skin and body, and the animal's body-heat in the cold rain. We watched the lead elephant proceed ponderously, here and there using its trunk to delicately move a branch out of our path. We inhaled deeply as our mahout offered us leaves from a kaffir lime tree. Finally, we swam in a small river to bathe the elephants. I swam around and up to one, placing my hand on its massive head and observing its light-brown eyes.






















At some point we changed guesthouses. Our new one sat on a tranquil lagoon, pelted by the insistent rain. We had some tasty food, and at night, made some new friends.










The next day we visited a "Tree Top Adventure Park" on the island. It is essentially a course of ladders, ropes and zip-lines that one traverses while securely harnessed at all times. At one point I found myself alone, high up in the trees, with the rest of the party barely within earshot. I took a moment, then launched myself along the zip-line leading into dense foliage and the unseen obstacles beyond it. Good fun.
















And then, more delicious food.