Chapter 773 - Riding An Elephant

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Yuan Zhou wasn’t happy with his lunch that noon. He had spent more than 100RMB on this meal. Compared with his 100,000RMB culinary fund, however, it was simply a drop in the ocean.

“It’s definitely because I didn’t do it the right way,” Yuan Zhou muttered to himself. After all, he had heard other customers spoke about it twice, saying that Thai food was quite delicious.

Yuan Zhou knew that he was very strict about food. It might be very delicious, just not as delicious as he imagined. Nevertheless, it wasn’t terrible. Therefore, Yuan Zhou thought for a while and questioned if he had gone to the wrong place.

He managed to calm down. After all, Yuan Zhou had booked an elephant ride from his hotel in the afternoon. The stingy system refused to pay the bill for him even if he gave the excuse, saying that only by being in a good mood he could taste the delicacies better. Riding an elephant was the perfect way to make him feel better.

He had originally wanted to discuss with the system, but Yuan Zhou’s words failed entirely to attract any attention and the system just stayed silent. Therefore, Yuan Zhou had no choice but to pay the bill by himself. 80RMB per person had probably made Yuan Zhou lose his good mood costing 80RMB.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak Thai. The hotel sent him straight to the destination with a direct bus and would come to drive him back one hour later. Half an hour later, Yuan Zhou arrived at the place where he had planned to come. He walked around for a while and then found something.

“This area seems to be full of recreational activities.” Yuan Zhou walked downwards along the slope.

The next moment, Yuan Zhou smelled the familiar flavor of spices. That’s right. There was a restaurant serving Thai food at the side of the slope. Furthermore, the activities here weren’t found in a traditional amusement park, either. The recreational activities included go-karting, shooting, circus show, and riding elephants.

These activities were fairly interesting. Yuan Zhou passed through the place for go-karting and walked further inward before he smelled the odor. It was said by the hotel receptionist that there were 7 or 8 elephants raised here so, of course, there was a bad odor. After all, the feces of these elephants smelled quite bad.

“With that strong flavor of spices along with the terrible odor rushing into my nose, I feel that my nose is going to malfunction.” Yuan Zhou finally knew why Chu Liuxiang <sup1</sup liked stroking his own nose.

Speaking of which, he should feel lucky that he was living in a Five-star Hotel. And in such a big hotel, it wasn’t difficult to find one that spoke Chinese.

The closer he walked, the smellier it became. However, the first animal that Yuan Zhou saw was actually a tiger instead of an elephant. It was a real tiger, though it was lying prone on the stone quietly while there was somebody holding it with an iron chain.

It wasn’t the most important thing. The key point was that Yuan Zhou was just passing by this place, but the people inside still dragged Yuan Zhou in. Though he didn’t understand Thai, he could roughly grasp their meaning. They seemed to be telling him how much it cost to take a group photo with the tiger.

Yuan Zhou wasn’t really afraid of the tiger. He just felt the tiger wasn’t good-looking. Compared to it, he liked the elephant more; therefore, he quickened his pace and skipped the area.

Then, he saw an elephant in a small pool. Alike to the tiger, there was also a person that stood beside it and charged customers to take a group photo. And at the side of the elephant, there was also an owl. Everyone could take a group photo with it under the condition that they paid the bill. The staff were so enthusiastic that they even pulled you in to take a photo.

Yuan Zhou didn’t like taking photos, so he just took a step backward and watched the foreigners take photos. By sheer coincidence, there was a tourist guide who spoke Chinese at the side and the tourists following her were also Chinese.

According to the tourist guide, they could take photos with the elephant for free if they bought a basket of snack foods at the neighboring stall to feed it. With the bananas on the surface and sweet potatoes below, the watermelon-sized basket was fairly heavy. As it wasn’t expensive, Yuan Zhou bought a basket of the fruits.

“Although I don’t like taking photos, I must do in Rome as the Romans do and take some photos with the elephant since I seldom come to Thailand.” Yuan Zhou was taking the bananas and feeding the little elephant. It took the bananas with its long nose and then stuffed it into its mouth. The actions were so quick that Yuan Zhou didn’t even have time to take a photo.

The bananas on the surface of the basket were eaten up by the elephant very soon, but Yuan Zhou still didn’t find a proper opportunity to take a photo.

The feeding method must be changed. Yuan Zhou glanced at the remaining sweet potatoes in the basket and made a gesture of beckoning, in the hope that the elephant would come over first so that he could take a photo before feeding it again. Without anything in his hand, however, the elephant didn’t come up to him at all. Furthermore, it even turned its butt toward him.

“How dare it! This elephant actually burned the bridge after crossing it.” Yuan Zhou took out the sweet potatoes and intended to tempt the elephant. He had turned on the camera with the other hand and was prepared to take photos at any time.

However, something unexpected happened. The elephant looked at the sweet potatoes in his hand and turned its head back as if it were not interested in them.

“What’s the problem?” Many possibilities flashed through Yuan Zhou’s mind. The most probable reason was that elephants didn’t eat sweet potatoes.

The tourist guide beside him explained to him conveniently, “Elephants also eat sweet potatoes if there is nothing else to eat. It prefers eating bananas.”

A picky eater!!! Yuan Zhou glared at the little elephant in the pool. There were still so many tourists around. Foreign tourists didn’t like buying things while the Chinese liked buying and buying when they travel. Therefore, many people were feeding the elephant with bananas and it was quite normal that the elephant didn’t come to eat his sweet potatoes.

“I’ve never thought that you were that kind of elephant.”

He couldn’t spend money on the basket of fruits in vain. So Yuan Zhou decided to buy one more basket of the fruits. Once bitten, twice shy. Having gained experience from that matter, Yuan Zhou first tempted the elephant to come over to him with the bananas and then snapped multiple photos quickly with his other hand.

Two baskets of fruits must be exchanged for something. Only after twenty minutes did Yuan Zhou put away his phone with complete satisfaction. In the meantime, the crowd of Chinese tourists also headed to the next place for riding an elephant.

Yuan Zhou followed them secretly. This was the legendary skill of “taking advantage of other people’s tourist guide”.

There was a chair on the back of the elephant. The taming master was seated on its head while the tourists were seated on the chair. The chair wasn’t very big and it could only hold two people at most. If there wasn’t only one person, he could also sit on it alone.

He lined up as requested and waited for the elephant.

Just like the old saying, it is the unexpected that always happens. He hadn’t even waited for ten minutes when it suddenly rained heavily. The sound of raindrops falling on the tree leaves could be heard.

“Bad luck today?” Yuan Zhou took out an umbrella from his small backpack. He had the habit of bringing an umbrella when he went out. And he was the only one that brought the umbrella in line. In just a little while, everyone else except him became drenched.

Yuan Zhou was considering another problem. Could he ride the elephant since it was raining? But soon, he was reassured by the actual deeds of the staff. Everyone could continue riding the elephant as long as they wanted to.

However, many tourists ahead of him refused the proposal and complained to one another.

“How can we ride it since the rain is so heavy? I would rather come later.”

“Exactly. The rain shelter can’t keep out most of the rain anyway. Let’s wait for a while.”

“It’s really heavy rain. Everything is so wet. I’d rather ride it later.”

However, Yuan Zhou looked at the elephant and checked the time. Then, he still decided to ride it now. In this manner, he could ride the elephant ahead of schedule as the people ahead of him all chose to ride it later.

“It feels great to ride an elephant in the rain. The elephant walks slowly and thus, the time is just right.” Yuan Zhou got on the elephant and enjoyed the experience.

That’s right. Yuan Zhou had told the hotel to come to pick him up one hour later. If he didn’t ride it now, he wouldn’t have enough time when the rain stopped.

And Yuan Zhou happened to be a person that stuck to a plan.

EMPTY