Article written by Sue McVerry about visit to
the elephants(published in a print magazine called Freelance Market News where
it won first prize in a competition. )
Travelling along a narrow road in Sri Lanka one evening we wondered why our guide, Jaleel, was driving unusually slowly - Sri Lankans never drive slowly. We soon saw why when a huge grey shape loomed out of the dusk just in front of us. There are no streetlights and, in spite of their size, elephants are pretty invisible in the dark.
“We call this a trunk road!” Jaleel said, slapping the steering wheel.
Ah well, they say the old ones are the best.
Joking aside, wild elephants are just one reason why driving yourself in Sri Lanka isn’t an option. The roads are chaotic at the best of times what with three-wheelers darting around, as well as dogs and kamikaze pedestrians. Add the cattle and insane bus drivers to the mix and you’ll understand why Jaleel insisted that driving in his country required “a good horn, good nerves and good luck – in that order!”
Elephants are the stars of Sri Lanka’s wildlife and everyone loves to talk about them – but then Sri Lankans love to talk about everything!
Our first scheduled encounter was on a jeep ride through the huge plains of the national park, home to 350 wild elephants.
The best time to see them out and about is early evening just before sunset when they shake off their daytime inertia to roam the plains. Elephants walk twenty miles each night in search of food, munching their way through up to four hundredweight of leaves and grasses at a time.
They are extremely short-sighted so it’s quite safe to get up close, but they have excellent hearing so you must stay quiet. The driver switched off the engine so we could stand on the back of the jeep just a few feet away. The only sound was the rustling of the undergrowth as the herd ambled majestically around us.
At sunset we reluctantly tore ourselves away and left them to their night’s roaming.
On the journey back Jaleel told us his favourite elephant story, about the dreadful English colonial gentleman who shot one. He was subsequently killed by lightning and a few years later his headstone was split in two by a second bolt. The car swerved wildly as Jaleel tried to contain his mirth at this well-deserved double disaster.
A few days later, after sampling some of Sri Lanka’s many other attractions - fragrant spice gardens, tea plantations and fantastic Buddhist temples - we were ready for another elephant experience.
This time we went to the orphanage at Pinnawala in Sri Lanka’s tropical hill country, home to orphans and retired working elephants.
The orphanage started in 1975 when there were just five motherless babies. Seventy-three elephants now live in the twelve acres of lush valley and there are usually two births each year. Some of the original inhabitants have their own children and grandchildren living with them in an extended family group.
Baby elephants drink twenty-five litres of milk a day. Orphans brought in from the wild must be bottle-fed and each meal takes seven bottles. When you consider that the very young also need feeding during the night, it’s not hard to see why volunteers are encouraged to come and give a hand. We visited the nursery where babies waited impatiently for the next bottle and the next………..
There are a couple of war heroes - Raja, an old blind elephant who lost his sight when he was shot as a youngster in the wild, and Sama who stepped on a landmine when she was two years old, losing most of one leg. She’s twelve now and doesn’t roam far. Attempts have been made to fit her with a prosthesis but she refuses to have anything to do with it.
Elephants’ bath time was the highlight. At 10 am and 2 pm each day the whole herd, except for poor old Raja, strolls the four hundred metres through the village, past the shops and down to the river.
Here there is a hotel where visitors can sit on the veranda and await their arrival. The buzz of anticipation as the time approached felt like curtain-up on Broadway!
One by one they wandered into the river, accompanied by the mahouts, or keepers. It takes two years to train as a mahout. Part of that time is spent learning how to communicate with the elephants and gain their trust. There are forty commands which to the unpractised ear all sound the same, something between a sneeze and a cough, but which make up a language understood perfectly by the mahout and his elephants.
The elephants clearly loved being in the water. Some lay down and rolled around, others wandered away from the rest and stood showering themselves. Some were feeling lazy and stayed stock-still whilst the mahouts threw bucket after bucket of water over them.
Eventually they all headed back. Last in line was a baby only a few weeks old doing her best to keep up with the rest. Hearing my “oohs” and “aahs,”the mahout asked if I’d like to stroke her.
Would it be okay? Yes, so long as I approached carefully so as not to alarm her mother who stood watchfully as I gently fondled the little hairy ears. What bliss! It was the perfect end to a wonderful experience.
“We call this a trunk road!” Jaleel said, slapping the steering wheel.
Ah well, they say the old ones are the best.
Joking aside, wild elephants are just one reason why driving yourself in Sri Lanka isn’t an option. The roads are chaotic at the best of times what with three-wheelers darting around, as well as dogs and kamikaze pedestrians. Add the cattle and insane bus drivers to the mix and you’ll understand why Jaleel insisted that driving in his country required “a good horn, good nerves and good luck – in that order!”
Elephants are the stars of Sri Lanka’s wildlife and everyone loves to talk about them – but then Sri Lankans love to talk about everything!
Our first scheduled encounter was on a jeep ride through the huge plains of the national park, home to 350 wild elephants.
The best time to see them out and about is early evening just before sunset when they shake off their daytime inertia to roam the plains. Elephants walk twenty miles each night in search of food, munching their way through up to four hundredweight of leaves and grasses at a time.
They are extremely short-sighted so it’s quite safe to get up close, but they have excellent hearing so you must stay quiet. The driver switched off the engine so we could stand on the back of the jeep just a few feet away. The only sound was the rustling of the undergrowth as the herd ambled majestically around us.
At sunset we reluctantly tore ourselves away and left them to their night’s roaming.
On the journey back Jaleel told us his favourite elephant story, about the dreadful English colonial gentleman who shot one. He was subsequently killed by lightning and a few years later his headstone was split in two by a second bolt. The car swerved wildly as Jaleel tried to contain his mirth at this well-deserved double disaster.
A few days later, after sampling some of Sri Lanka’s many other attractions - fragrant spice gardens, tea plantations and fantastic Buddhist temples - we were ready for another elephant experience.
This time we went to the orphanage at Pinnawala in Sri Lanka’s tropical hill country, home to orphans and retired working elephants.
The orphanage started in 1975 when there were just five motherless babies. Seventy-three elephants now live in the twelve acres of lush valley and there are usually two births each year. Some of the original inhabitants have their own children and grandchildren living with them in an extended family group.
Baby elephants drink twenty-five litres of milk a day. Orphans brought in from the wild must be bottle-fed and each meal takes seven bottles. When you consider that the very young also need feeding during the night, it’s not hard to see why volunteers are encouraged to come and give a hand. We visited the nursery where babies waited impatiently for the next bottle and the next………..
There are a couple of war heroes - Raja, an old blind elephant who lost his sight when he was shot as a youngster in the wild, and Sama who stepped on a landmine when she was two years old, losing most of one leg. She’s twelve now and doesn’t roam far. Attempts have been made to fit her with a prosthesis but she refuses to have anything to do with it.
Elephants’ bath time was the highlight. At 10 am and 2 pm each day the whole herd, except for poor old Raja, strolls the four hundred metres through the village, past the shops and down to the river.
Here there is a hotel where visitors can sit on the veranda and await their arrival. The buzz of anticipation as the time approached felt like curtain-up on Broadway!
One by one they wandered into the river, accompanied by the mahouts, or keepers. It takes two years to train as a mahout. Part of that time is spent learning how to communicate with the elephants and gain their trust. There are forty commands which to the unpractised ear all sound the same, something between a sneeze and a cough, but which make up a language understood perfectly by the mahout and his elephants.
The elephants clearly loved being in the water. Some lay down and rolled around, others wandered away from the rest and stood showering themselves. Some were feeling lazy and stayed stock-still whilst the mahouts threw bucket after bucket of water over them.
Eventually they all headed back. Last in line was a baby only a few weeks old doing her best to keep up with the rest. Hearing my “oohs” and “aahs,”the mahout asked if I’d like to stroke her.
Would it be okay? Yes, so long as I approached carefully so as not to alarm her mother who stood watchfully as I gently fondled the little hairy ears. What bliss! It was the perfect end to a wonderful experience.
