There are certainly no peanuts in there...(posting from the road)

I could go on and on (and it seems as though I have) as this is the third e-mail on the same day. Here is a brief summary for the rest of the day...

1) Left tigers and went to elephant sanctuary, rode Asian elephant through the jungle and a river. Riding on the seat of the elephant is very bumpy and uncomfortable but riding directly on the back of the elephant is surprisingly smooth. All the elephant guides live in huts at the sanctuary with their children, whose primary function seems to be playing and bathing the elephants. These gentle giants did not seem to mind 5 or 6 kids, in various states of dress climbing up their trunks, doing cannonballs off of them - generally just being kids but on top of an elephant. The santuary had many baby elephants as well, I had to wade through a small herd of them after Christopher lost his shoe. I was bending over to retrieve the shoe when a little 4 month old came up and tried to stick his trunk in a place I can assure you peanuts are not stored.

2) Argh, our guide, wanting to give us the full Thai animal expereince had the driver stop at this one turn off near a monkey crossing sign, so with a full bunch of bananas we waited patiently while monkeys appeared from the jungle. I began getting a little nervous and given my previous expereince, quite understandly so. Argh kept assuring me that it would be fine....of course it was not. I was just doing as instructed and for a while it worked well. Hold out a banana, a timid monkey would approach, pell and eat the banana. I am not sure what I did to provoke this one nasty female, the wrong eye contact maybe? She went crazy, started howling and scratched the hell out of my left hand. Argh had to rescue me by throwing rocks at her (normally I against the blantent abuse of animals but in this case I was totally okay with it). Something else weird - it's in the EXACT spot where that monkey bit me in Guatemala...

3) Final animal encounter. There is very little money here for the people let alone the animals. There is a small ''zoo'' near where we were, more a less a collection of rescued or abandoned animals. Of course they cannot afford to buy food etc for all the animals. Their solution - left tourists play with a leoard cub for $1.50. So...wrong to exploit animals but wrong to let them starve...so sticky situation. I did spend the money and held the cub...well this used to be a cub...now it's a 60lb cat. I must admit from the photos it looks ridiculous, they keep posing you which is why it looks like a family portrait. I personally think it looks like the photos is saying ''Christopher and Amy Leah are happy to welcome the birth of their lepord into the family". Overall though it was awesome, the lepoard was cute and surprisingly soft. But in keeping with the day, bit me too.

To summerize the day: almost threw up in a monastary, was bit and scratched by different tigers, was scratched my a monkey, was bit by a lepoard and almost had an elephant stick his trunk somewhere no trunk should ever be! Despite the pain, promise of a raging infection and near personal violation - Had a simply amazing day.

Kap-koon-ka for reading.