Knowing that traveling for a solid seven weeks would be exhausting, we built a vacation into our vacation: a week on the famous beaches of Phuket, Thailand. While planning our trip, however, we hadn’t paid attention to the fact that May heralds the beginning of the rainy season in SE Asia. Our first full day in Phuket, it poured. With very impressive thunder and lightning. Armed with umbrellas, we wandered the beach despondently in the rain.

The thunderstorms didn’t return, however, and the rest of our time in Phuket provided fine beach weather, if frequently overcast. Instead of busy, crowded Patong Beach, we opted to stay a little further down the coast off much quieter Karon Beach. The small cluster of rather run-down hotels, restaurants and shops were nearly empty, it being the start of the low season – another fact we hadn’t been aware of. After three weeks of bustling, frequently polluted cities, however, I was relieved to no longer be dodging people and traffic at every turn.

Phuket was absolutely devastated by the 2004 tsunami only four and a half years ago, but the beach resort communities have made a remarkable recovery. The only overt reminders of the disaster are the “tsunami evacuation route” signs scattered along the beach and in town, pointing toward the inland mountains.

Not every day was spent lounging under a beach umbrella. This being Thailand, we were determined to ride an elephant. At the teeny Karon tourist office we found a reasonable day package to the mainland that included elephant riding, a visit to the “Monkey Cave” surrounded by hundreds of (very hungry) long-tailed macaques we first saw in Singapore, and, believe it or not, white-water rafting. Rafting is . . . really not what I associate with Thailand, but it turned out to be ridiculously fun. With some French tourists, we “rafted” (only in the merest sense as the guides did pretty much all the work) an icy, tumbling mountain river lined with boulders. The guides got the biggest kick out of steering us directly into these boulders, and there was much shrieking in French, English, and Thai. Good times!

Riding an Asian elephant was the highlight of my time in Phuket, however. Shoes must be left behind, and warm, bristly elephant hide feels deliciously strange to bare feet. Fifteen feet off the ground, we clung to our simple seat (no safety restraints here) for over half an hour as we dipped and swayed along a jungle trail. Our young guide, nicknamed “Ladyboy” by another driver, lounged negligently directly on top of the elephant’s head and shared such useful phrases in his English repertoire as “How old are you?” and “Do you have boyfriend?” and “Give me your cameras, I’ll take picture!” “Okay,” we said, handing them over - only to have him slip right off to the jungle floor, taking photo after photo, while our elephant, driverless, kept ambling along.

“Oh. Oh my,” we said, and clutched tighter.

“You!” our grounded driver said, gesturing to Monica. “Elephant head! Go! Get on!” (Snapping more photos.)

And she did. To this day both of us are still rather amazed at how she managed to scooch up the neck of a moving elephant and by some miracle not fall off, but she did it. “Karen!” she hissed. “If I start to fall will you catch me??” “Um,” I replied, eyeing the distance from my own unsteady seat. “Maybe . . . ?”

“Smile!” our guide cheerfully called out, and we dutifully grinned back, half in delight, half in terror. Eventually he scampered back up our elephant to take the seat beside me, and Monica rode just behind the elephant’s ears all the way back to the dismounting station. It should be noted that none of the other tourists got to experience such a hilariously thrilling ride. There are distinct advantages to being two girls with a Ladyboy guide.