Traffic tooting, oh my goodness, the tooting. Having based myself in Kandy, I piled myself into the back of a tuktuk, just me and a driver with limited English to head to the world famous elephant orphanage which was a decent number of kilometres away. "Beep beep" "beep beep beep beep". I had no idea what the beep series meant but they must've stood for something because the dirver would toot then the guy in front would get out of the way etc. I found it very interesting.
The elephant orphanage was almost as interesting as the journey there, in which I noted a number of elephants heading up to Kandy. Not to mention the person on the side of the road selling pictures with a porcupine… yes I did pay her… naivety again.
It struck me as a bit of exploitation of the poor elephants. Sure, a lot of them were genuine orphans but the price charged by the government to foreigners was such a double standard considering what I paid for my tuktuk driver, who had been given orders by my guest house to look after me, to get in. It was incredibly off putting, the double standard. But then again, I do notice it happening a bit here too now so maybe I am being overly critical.
It was an amazing experience to watch the elephants, despite my critical thoughts. Elephants are such social creatures. When they bathe they was each other. They just seem so happy, even the ones that appeared to be rescue elephants with severe injuries as a result of abuse. They were just so majestic. Which I guess made the Esala Perahera that much harder as I realised how many were in chains and how often I heard the music of the chains as the elephants moved.
The orphanage is set in a beautiful location with dedicated staff. They have big and small elephants all in the same place and take them to the river a couple of times a day for a bath. I arrived just in time. So often in Sri Lanka I was so lucky.
It was a pretty awesome day trip down there from Kandy and I got back in plenty of time to spend an hour or so reading a book and working on an assignment that I was doing for the taught part of my masters degree at the time.
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