Painting, Riding, Climbing on Elephants

After 5 days with Lennox ill, Flo incapacitated, Lola sick and me sleeping an entire day we finally got out and about.

It took a bit longer than it should have as the google maps route to our target address , turned out to be a backyard in the middle of a poor area, which was inhabited by 5 cows (and their droppings) and an aggressive monkey.

Thank goodness for the apps. In this case, "Ola" is the Indian equivalent of Uber. After another search and putting the new address into Ola, we were pretty soon headed in the right direction.

The direction being an elephant sanctuary that we had previously seen on the BBC. Some may complain about animal rights, but they fail to see that in India and Asia, more generally Elephants are domesticated working animals. The equivalent of complaining about riding on animals would be to complain about horse riding in Europe. Or those who complain about painting on elephants (an age-old tradition here), maybe they should focus on poodle trimming locally first.

When we finally arrived at the right place, it was super interesting. There were many healthy elephants. The children went riding on the elephants, two per elephant, something I have never done, but that I might try sometime soon. Then they fed the elephants, learned how to get on, by working with the elephant and its trunk, and Lola did some lovely painting.

What struck me were two things, firstly how elephants feel. I thought that skin would be like a cheap leather couch or rougher, but actually, it's very soft, very nice to touch. Secondly these animals are so gentle, so careful. They are huge, and they weigh 3,500 kg, but the keepers sit crossed legged on the floor whilst Oscar feeds them because the animals behave calmly, and they don't rush towards a pile of bananas. very majestic.Leia mais