[ZenGum]

You're spot on there capn, changing seats like this is fairly normal.
I did an elephant trek in Thailand, and the mahout let me sit up front for more than half of the journey. Hey, to him its a job and he was getting to kick back and relax. To me it was something new and interesting and I got to enjoy it fully. The elephant knew perfectly well where to go so I only pretended to steer.

At one point the front elephant stopped to eat and mine .... drum-roll .... just walked around it (how disappointing). But it completely ignored my ear-tugging commands to turn or stop. After that I realised who was really in charge and that I should just hang on and enjoy the view.