Riding the gentle giant!

One of the highlights of our trip to Thekkady was the elephant ride! I've been on a camel in Rajasthan and on a horse a few times, so I just had to do this!
I was going to do it alone but then we got to buying the tickets and it turned out to be a better bargain for your money if the three of us went (but it was still PRETTY expensive - Rs. 750 for 3 of us). So we bought our tickets and waited for our ride...

To be honest, I was a little worried about getting on the elephant before we got there because in Rajasthan we had to climb on the camel while it was sitting down and then hold on for dear life while the camel got onto its feet. Now a camel with its dandy looooong legs leans backwards and forwards and threatens to throw you off while it's trying to get up and you don't exactly have seatbelts or anything to hold on to except the little hairs on its back so it's pretty scary. So I was hoping we wouldn't have to do the same sort of thing on the elephant which is CONSIDERABLY bigger!!
Anyway, all my fears were for naught. They had this high platform and a stool to climb onto the elephant's back so it was all good.
It was so amazing to watch the guy guiding the elephant talking away with the elephant in Malayalam and she (the elephant who's name was Chandramukhi) understood everything!
There was also this other guy who was the "photographer" and took all these photos of us with my camera - I didn't even have to tell him how to operate it or anything and Chandramukhi even posed for the photos by putting her trunk up!
The ride lasted for about half an hour around this little spice garden where we saw pepper plants, coffee plants and some other spices... (and also a LOT of elephant poop!)
After the ride was over we even got a little photo session with the elephant and I put 10 bucks in her trunk and she "blessed" me!
Seriously awesome - what a gentle giant!