Sri Lanka

Alice, Sophie, Emily, Logan, Jennifer, Holly, Mason, Margot, Juliet, Helen, Ted, Fraser, Bob and Allen

This past weekend a group of us decided to flew to Sri Lanka to take advantage of the 3 day weekend. We flew into Colombo which was an hours flight from Chennai, a nice short flight. Their were 14 of us...6 kids and 8 adults. What an incredibly fun weekend we had! We left Chennai at 6:45 am and arrived in Colombo at around 8 am.

uh oh...flat tire

We've safely landed!

waiting for our rooms

the only water sport around...

fun times playing

Sophie and Emily

We arrived at the Brown's Beach Resort and after sorting out the room situation we were floating in the pool by around 1o am. I must admit I was very nervous about going to Sri Lanka due to the fighting amongst the Tamils and the Sri Lankans. You could tell this when sitting at the pool I heard something like a gun shot that made me jump about 10 feet! The kids had so much fun playing with the guys in the pool! The sun was really intense even though we were just a bit farther south. By afternoon everyone was a little red! The kids spent time in the pool but really enjoyed playing in the ocean and running on the clean beach! I was amazed at how similiar Sri Lanka was to India but in some ways so different. Sri Lanka was so clean, had no cows wandering the streets, few stray dogs and women in saris (just long skirts). It was nice to walk on sidewalks (yes they had sidewalks too) and not having to worry about what you were stepping in. I had a man propose to me on the beach...I have decided to keep Ted though! On Sunday morning we all boarded a bus that took us to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage which was about a bumpy 2 hr drive. The scenery was very pretty, rice paddies, rubber plantations, hills and palm trees. We arrived just in time for our group to get the last of the feeding tickets...thank you Margot and Juliet for sharing with us! I must say that I got a bit teary eyed when it was my turn to bottle feed the elephant. I have bottle fed a lot of animals in my life and nothing was as amazing (or quick) at witnessing the baby drink its milk! I have loved animals since I was little and elephants have always been at the top of the list.

The Rubber Plantation

Mason seeing how stretchy the rubber sap is

Feeding time at the elephant orphanage

Okay a few tears...

Emily's turn

We then watched an elephant tear and eat the pulp from a coconut tree. I must admit the elephant was very clever about tackling this. It looked like he would surely tip over the way he leaned.
We then were able to walk out into a large field that had lots of elephants, each standing with their mahout or trainer. At one point a baby elephant pulled my hand into his mouth and tried to suck on it! Okay, it may sound gross but it was kind of cool! How many people have had their hand in an elephant's mouth (okay so maybe you wouldn't want to?)? The elephant were not chained or tied to anything, they could have trampled us if they had wanted to but they didn't (note...the big African Elephant I believe may have been chained up).

my hand is in his mouth...

We then walked towards the river and sat out on a deck over looking the river and had drinks while waiting for the elephants. It was such a beautiful site to see these magnificent creatures heading into the river. There was one elephant missing his foot, it was blown off in landmine. The poor elephants spine is all out of whack and I read that they are trying to work on making a prosthesis foot for him. It was absolutely beautiful watching the elephants in there natural environment. The drank and sprayed water. They laid down and were scrubbed by the kids. When heading back to the bus we headed through a tourist area and I saw my very first cobra and snake charmer! The cobra was pretty neat to see...from a distance. There was also a man with some pythons.

Then headed to another elephant reserve where we rode elephants bareback, scrubbed elephants in the river and were given a shower by an elephant! We had our choice between a 15 minute ride and a 3o minute ride and lets say due to the size of the elephant the 15 minute ride was more than enough. We rode the elephant to the edge of a rice field and I will never forget the view. The field was such a brilliant green, waving palms trees and a nice gentle breeze on our face, all from atop an elephant. Once again I am so thankful to have had these adventures!

Please note: several of the photos were taken by Bob Blair, thanks for sharing!