Pinnawala, Sri Lanka
Monday, January 7, 2008
We took the bus to Pinnewala Elephant Sanctuary near Kegalle, we stayed at a cheap hotel next to the elephant bath, a natural river that is wide and shallow, and allows the Sanctuary's 30 or so elephants to have a splash around for the tourists. We went into the Sanctuary itself the next morning and watched the main body of the elephant herd being walked out to go to the river, we went further into the Sanctuary and came across other 'naughty’ elephants – usually violent elephants that bullied other elephants in the herd – two were together, Glenn and I fed one each with bamboo canes (they were so strong that Glenn tried to pull his canes back and got a huge bruise on his arm!). One started to get a bit stroppy though, so we left. As we walked away we saw another elephant on his own chained tightly amongst some trees. He seemed a bit upset, so Glenn found a heavy log from the feeding pile and gave it to the elephant, who was really grateful. We went to the river to watch the rest of the elephants bathing, the babies were chasing each other and looked to be having a good time, while the matriarchs and bulls were kept away from each other and chained to the rocky banks. Glenn stroked the elephants while I hid behind him – the animals are so huge and strong I daren’t get closer than 3 feet away!!!
After the Elephant Sanctuary we took the bus to
Kandy to stay for a couple of nights before heading to
Dambulla.
