Elephants and tribes

Today we went to a elephant park that had 30 elephants in it. We got to lots of things with the elephants like ride them and watch them do all the cool things they have learned. I got to feed them babanas and sugar cane and leaves. One elephant can paint pictures. It painted a picture of a tree. It sold for $700 Thai Baht.
We also went on a ox cart ride. Then we learned about rice and rice paddies and also about how to make sugar cubes out of sugar cane by boiling it down.  It is very interesting how they make brown sugar out of sugar cane. First they put the sugar cane into an wooden squeezer that squeezes the liquid out of the cane. Then they put it in a pot and boil it for 3 hours and put it into a mold to harden into squares.

Then we went on a bamboo raft down the river for 45 minutes to the truck that would pick us up. But instead of going home we went to 5 tribes. One was the long neck people. The long neck people wear these rings around their necks from when they are 4-5 years old untill they die. They never take them off. Only the women have to wear them. The rings are 3 killos. They are very heavy. I could almost not lift them up. They were making cloth and other crafts to sell to people to make money for their families. It was very interesting to see they difference in the way the 5 tribes dressed and how their houses were built differently.

When we got back we went to the children's home and played with the kids and gave them some gum and toys we bought them yesterday at the market.