Birds, Deer, Elephants...but no Tigers

This morning we woke up at the lovely hour of 4am to do nothing other than ride elephants!!!! Even though it was incredibly early, i can't really complain because honestly how many people get to say they rode an elephant in India? It was so amazing. The elephant i was on really was not that big, but i still would not want to get caught on the underside of their legs! The ride was really nice though, taking pictures was kind of hard though because they all kept coming out blurry. We rode them for about 2 hours looking for tigers, but unfortunately none were to be found....although we did get to see a freshly killed animal...not that that was very exciting...it more just smelled awful! It was great though because when we were coming back our guide jumped down off the elephant to take pictures of us. It was so cool, but i was kind of worried about how he would get back on. Apparently they train the elephants to help the riders get back on, so he literally climbed up the trunk of the elephant. It was the coolest thing ever!
Its so funny because i still can't believe i'm in India, let alone riding elephants! The Corbett Tiger Preserve was really beautiful! There was so much to see and all the wild life was amazing. Although the guide my jeep had was really into birds so we were constantly stopping so he could take pictures of birds that were miles away and only he could spy them. It was kind of funny.