April 6, 2025
Today began our trek down the Elephant Highway. We ride encouraged and informed by a safety lecture outlining the mostly, don’ts of what to do when encountering Elephants along the highway. They generally ignore cars but bicycles are often seen as a threat they can handle. These are mostly bulls this time of the year and they just eat most of the time. If they are eating or peacefully resting it is basically, go in peace my friend. However, if you get to close this gentle giant swiftly becomes a raging tank bent upon destruction, your destruction, so give them space and if the elephant goes full frontal, with twitching ears and restless pawing of the ground, you have crossed a line in it is time to step back and do so swiftly.
Unfortunately for me the experience was 100% highway and zero percent elephants. Some in our group saw a somewhat perturbed bull before I got to that section but they were informed about elephant etiquette and avoided disaster.
An interesting fact: You may at times see an elephant painfully lifting one of his legs. It is said that if you slowly approach and assist in removing the thorn or other foreign object imbedded there, the elephant will show his gratitude by gently lifting you with his trunk and bashing you to bits against any nearby solid object. He is after all a wild elephant and not some dumb children’s story elephant. You broke the rules and he responded according to his nature.