Feed a baby Elephant

Sri Lanka was one of the places I had always wanted to visit. I don’t know why it called to me the way it did but it is a country that has always been there at the back of my mind. When we were looking at Honeymoon destinations I suggested Sri Lanka, my wife suggested The Maldives so we reached a compromise and decided to do both. We were married on Saturday September 22nd 2012 and on the following Monday we set off from Heathrow airport. 12 short hours later we arrived in Colombo. We had been watching the weather forecasts and it had been constantly telling us that there were thunder storms so we were relieved to find that the sun was shining when we landed. We were picked up by a taxi driver, he was our airport transfer and we were pleased that we were the only passengers for the 4 hour journey to the resort. The hotel was fantastic, we had the Bentota River to one side of the resort but on the other side we could walk right out onto the beach with the Indian Ocean right in front of us. After we had settled in we started to discuss what we were going to do. I had always wanted to visit the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnawala so we looked into this and found that there was a trip available so we booked ourselves a place on this full day trip to see the Elephants. Our Alarm call went off at 4.30 as we were being collected at 5 and the Hotel had arranged a packed Breakfast for us. When we booked ourselves on the trip we had expected that we would be part of a group and would be collected in a coach or a minibus. When the driver arrived he lead us outside to a car. We were to be the only passengers on a personal tour. The day was filled with promise. The journey to Pinnawala took 4 hours and a lot of this was over bumpy, ill maintained roads. We got to experience more of the unique driving style that we had experienced on the journey from the airport. It seems that it is every man for himself, if you see a space take it and if in doubt, pip the horn. We had a few stops on the way as our guide pointed out things we would not normally see. We stopped at a small pool by the side of the road where Kingfishers were

perched in the small branches of the trees and Monitor lizards were walking by. We stopped to see the pineapples growing, saw the rubber plantation and bought some small red bananas from a road side stall, all before we arrived at our destination. We were guided through the gate and to the left where there was a crowd of people gathered, this was where the baby elephants were.

Going

 About a week before they’d had a few new arrivals but these were tucked away from the main area. There was one baby elephant in a small enclosure and we gave our guide a few rupees and he came back with a litre of milk and pushed me to the railings. I lifted the milk and placed the end of the bottle into the mouth of the elephant and lifted the bottom of the bottle. I have never seen a litre of milk disappear so quickly but my wife did manage to get a set of pictures it.

Going

Gone.

It was a fantastic experience. In direct contrast to this we found ourselves stood right next to a huge creature, one minute we were watching some people having their pictures taken with an elephant the next we were stood where they had been a few seconds before. It was quite a scary but invigorating moment, we both said afterwards that we were fully aware that if this Elephant had wanted to she could have quite easily ended our lives before we even knew about it. Just a short walk from the Elephant Park is an open
area of water where the elephants are taken to bathe. We sat ourselves down in a decent vantage point and slowly they arrived. It is a little concerning to see that they are lead down the street with all of the shops and stalls, on the way down to the area we’d had to move out of the way so that the last group could get past. I am sure we must have sat in wonder for nearly an hour watching these amazing creatures interacting with each other, splashing water about or just lying there in the pools. We did go on to explore other parts of Sri Lanka after this but for me, the day was all about the Elephants.