You can’t come to this part of the world without experiencing some form of elephant-related activity, and there are many to choose from out of the lodge. Anything ranging from gentle rides in a two-seater “ele-saddle” up to Phu Asa, to full blown day long elephant safaris are available. You can also do a course in learning to ride one, which seemed like a lot of fun. At least it did on paper.

Turns out riding an elephant was a lot more difficult than we both realised. Before you even go anywhere, you’ve got to be able to mount this 3 meter high beast; despite getting it to raise it’s front leg so you can step up, you’ve still got to haul yourself up the rest of the way. For someone with practically no upper body strength, it was a challenge to say the least.

Once you’re in the riding position (directly behind it’s head and on the neck) it’s onto the steering and forward motion. Making it go is a simple affair, issuing a command in Lao and patting it on the head. Unfortunately, keeping it going was a lot more hard work, as you need to constantly nudge it behind the ears to maintain forward momentum. Steering required more nudging and twisting your body in the direction you wanted to go. After about an hour of this, I realised that it wasn’t going to be as sit-and-go as I thought.

Despite us both struggling to keep our massive creatures in check, the mahouts decided that we were competent enough to go on an extended walk through the village and neighbouring wetlands.

Ten minutes into the journey, I was starting to smart from the twisting, turning and constant flexing of muscles I never use. The animals seemed quite content, walking along casually and occasionally stopping to grab leaves off nearby trees. Then, without warning, my elephant turned and started charging in the other direction.

Obviously spooked by something, it ploughed into thick trees and bushes. I was hanging on for dear life whilst the mahout (who was behind me in the saddle) looked completely freaked out. Jumping in front of me, he was desperately trying to get control of his animal, getting the full brunt of all the bushes, branches and thorns coming at us from all sides.

After about 15 seconds we managed to make it back to the path, but the elephant (obviously still spooked) was still charging at what seemed like breakneck speed. I had made it into the saddle and was hanging on tightly, but it was about a minute until the creature had calmed down and appeared back under control.

Suffering only minor scrapes and bruises and shaking like a leaf, we settled underneath a tree in an open clearing. Emma and her entourage arrived a few minutes later, and after breaking for a few more minutes, we carried on. From this point on, I decided to leave the elephant-driving to the experts and sat in the back, pretending to enjoy the scenery whilst my heart rate gradually normalised.