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Published: September 6th 2017
Sri Lanka day 2
From a big pile of dung to washing elephants in the river
Today was mostly about an elephant called Seetha. And the big pile of poo was at a dung factory. Yes, after breakfast, we started our day with a visit to a dung factory which surprisingly didn't stink. That may have something to do with elephant poo being 90% fibre but I'm not sure.
What I do know is that this place turns elephant poo into paper, book covers, greetings cards etc. They export to many countries yet still use old equipment and do things mainly by hand. It was quite a fleeting visit but we got to hold and sniff elephant poo which had only gone through stage one of the process so who can complain?
Despite it saying the explanation tour was free our guide asked for a tip but by the time I'd sorted some money out he'd scarpered anyway.
We already had two Londoners on our trip and two more joined us when we got back to the house; they having got up late. After a drinks break it was time for a cooking lesson
and being taught how to make Sri Lankan curry. This included scraping out coconuts to make coconut milk and making various dishes.....some of which I've had to note down so I can make them for Claire back home......
After some sitting around it was time to eat what we'd cooked and the cook had added some more dishes too. All very nice. I had lots.
Our guide was called Kelum and his dream is to go to New Zealand. I hope our tip at the end of the day goes at least a small way towards him achieving this. He was very helpful and chatty and was able to answer most questions apart from what are those leafy things in the curry...?
Our driver from last night turned up and took us in his minibus to meet Seetha. It was about a 45min drive along more roads lined with many shops. We parked up by an unfinished building and Seetha stood resolutely by while we waited for the mahout...who was off having his lunch....which didn't impress Kelum.
When he turned up Seetha turned round and we finally got to see her face. Two scars on her
back were testament that she was previously used for carrying people on her back...up to six at a time in a metal harness.
We set off behind her and walked for quite a while. This was dragged out as she disappeared into some bushes for quite a while. Too long really and it seemed like days had passed when our mahout's son finally got Seetha out. Mahouting is passed down through generations and they don't like sharing the words they use to control elephants. Kelum knew a few but not all of them.
We eventually arrived at the river and Seetha had a lie down. She has to be washed and scrubbed every day and today was our chance to help out with this. And we did it with coconut husk. I say we did it but didn't seem to be anywhere near as effective as mahout and son. When we scrubbed nothing seemed to happen, when they did it loads of dirt came out. Good job we only did the back and had to leave everywhere else to the mahouts or we'd still be there now!
It's definitely not every day though that you get to
wash an elephant in a river yet one guy didn't seemed to enjoy himself and said that was enough for one lifetime despite having only been near the elephant twice. I don't care if he's reading this because he really is a weirdo!
We fed some Seetha some cucumber and I got to put some straight into her mouth which resulted in having a soggy wet tongue touching my hand. Ooey but funny!
We wandered back to the minibus leaving Seetha and mahouts in the river. I think we both fell asleep on the way back to the house.
After sorting things out and we caughta tuk tuk to the station which was about a 20 min journey and cost £2. A bargain you say...wait I say.... He dropped us at Rambukkana startion where we caught thr train one stop to Polagowella. At 5 whole pence each I thought I'd heard wrong when he told me the price! We had to stand up but hey, it was 5 pence!
We waited a while at Polagowella writing blogs on the platform before catching the express train to Thambuttagma. At this station I had my first cold drink
in Sri Lanka as in actually cold not just a cold drink.
The train was 15 mins late which doesn't sound like a lot but when you can't understand the announcements and there are no electonic signs...you start to worry that the train you're getting on isn't your train at all. But someone helped us and reasurred us we were getting on the right train. And didn't want a tip for telling us which is a lot different than Sri Lanka's near neighbour, India. And then when we got on the train someon gave up his seat so we could seat together...go Sri Lanka!!
We are in 2nd class as the only alternative is 3rd class but that didn't look much different to be honest apart from being a tad more crowded. We have fans in the carriages, seats for clergy and open windows to cool us down. This train journey is 2 1/2 hours and cost us less than £1 each....
And we only got there about an hour late which isn't bad. Thankfully someone was still waiting to meet us. We had arranged for someone from our next accommodation to pick us up and they
greeted us then told us to wait. We didn't know what the delay was until we realised the transport was the other side of the tracks and there was some sort of delay. So were shepherded back through the train and down the other side. And when I say down, I mean down as there was no platform so we had to drop down whilst still wearing our rucksacks.
We managed somehow and were soon perched in the front seats of a safari jeep ready for 50km of the wind literally rushing through our hair....and insects hitting my face...
The hotel manager sat with us and had a torch that he was very fond of-he kept shining it on roads and telling us where the road went. When we got to our hotel he asked me how many dollars I had paid for our room. I'd booked on booking.com and had a price in pounds together with a big list of things we were going to get like water and fruits etc. He had no concept of English pounds. At all.
He showed us a dingy room that just about fitted two single beds in and told
us a price that was higher than what was on my booking printout. We looked dismayed and tried to explain that this was more expensive and minus the extras but he just kept looking blankly at us. He showed us another room which was much nicer but of course even more expensive. It was now nearly 1:30am and we had to be up at 5 so we took the better of the two rooms and closed the door. Then the doorbell rang. We had to pay for the transport now and this turned out to be the price we'd been told.
Finally we went to sleep.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Seetha is gorgeous
So amazing that you hung out with an elephant for a while. I wonder why that guy would book a day activity based on elephants, when he doesn't seem that taken with elephants? Although, even though I love elephants, 'hold and sniff elephant poo' isn't something that's high on my travel wish list :)