talking to the owner of the camp and she had grown up with Phanom (who was 46) and she said that they were extremely intelligent and loving. It had been her idea to train the elephants to swim with the public and she was very proud of this, and I can’t say as I blame her, what a lovely life she’d had! Thankfully the camp had hot tubs which were for anyone who’d been on a ride. What a welcome relief! They were a bit smelly but wonderful, we soaked our aching muscles and left looking rather pink!

After all the days activities we went back to our hut for a good old chill in the hammock. We had decided that we fancied a drink, so with there being loads of Italian restaurants thought a nice Italian and a bottle of wine would finish the day off perfectly! We had a great meal, I had spaghetti but Rob sacked off the Italian idea and had Fish and Chips instead! The wine went down a treat and after

we’d polished off the bottle we decided to treat ourselves to another and drink it back at the hut! It was so nice to have a decent bottle of wine, beer is OK but it definitely doesn’t have the same qualities as a decent glass of wine. The last time we’d drank wine was in Pokhara in Nepal so as you can imagine it was going down really well. We finished that and decided to get some more so we went to the local Italian who sold us a plastic bottle full - wino’s or what!!! We only drink now once in a while, so I guess once you start its nice to indulge!!!

The next day we woke up knowing that we shouldn’t have bothered with the plastic bottle full of wine as we gingerly climbed out of bed straight into the shower, then headed off into town for a big breakfast! We had a delightful breakfast that helped make us feel human again, did a little bit of window shopping then decided it would be