Khun Mok and his family have run their horse farm for seventeen years. At present, they house forty-eight Thai ponies, as well as a few dozen assorted animals: wild pigs, chickens, cats, and dogs.

If you’re afraid of heights, but want to learn to ride a horse, a Thai pony is a good one to start with. They’re not as small as traditional ponies, but not so tall that you’d break out in cold sweat. The first thing I realized when I got on the horse was that you must allow your spine to loosen and be fluid. No tight tushies, no stiff hips. It took a few minutes to get the hang of isolating the hips, and allowing them to follow the undulation of the horse, all the while sitting up straight, and gripping the horse’s torso with your thighs. The kids, of course, got comfortable more quickly than Alaric and I did.

After a few practice rounds in the small arena, we went on a trail ride. The kids’ trail was shorter and slower than ours, and we walked alongside them. With Khun Oy (mom) and Nong Oil (daughter) as our guides, we stopped a few times to check out plants and flowers. Get this: sorrel grows plenty there! Alaric and Smith picked cherry tomatoes, which we had at that night’s dinner.

The adults went on two trail rides, each one a different route. On the first trail, we went slowly, with a bit of trotting here and there. Our horses were so well-trained, knew the trails so well,  and were so sure-footed, that we could have taken a nap on their backs, and still not lose sight of our leader. That said, they were so well-trained, that they resisted our commands if they differed from the leading horse’s. At one point, my stick fell, and I had to coax  my pony to go back, let me dismount, retrieve the stick, mount him, then return to the group.

Mok must have seen something in us novices that we couldn’t see in ourselves. Without boots or helmets, he encouraged us to “do more running” (i.e. canter and gallop) on the second ride. Man, “running” was both scary and exhilarating! It was scary knowing that if you lose your head, you can lose your balance, lose your horse, lose your pride, and maybe lose a limb. It was exhilarating knowing that if you keep your head, you can keep your grip on the reins, keep yourself on the horse, keep yelling “Woo hoo! I can’t believe I’m doing this!” Oh yes, and keep all your limbs intact.

There was a moment though, when Alaric and I looked at each other, looked at Mok, and together said “I ain’t going there!” Mok simply said that we had to, as the other riders started to make their way there, including Pim, who was also new to riding. “There” was down a steep, steep, steep ravine, which triggered an internal mental battle that went something like this: “Ok, horsey, do your thing. Oh my God, this is crazy! Good horsey, I trust you. Holyshitholyshitholyshit! Ah, we made it, good job, horsey. Why is my entire body is trembling like this?”

Here is our fearless leader, Mok:

And here we are at the end, before we headed back to the bus station in town. As I like to say (thanks, GBC Radio!), a good time was had by all!