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Published: September 12th 2017
Young elephants
Elephant Transit Centre for Orphan Elephants, Sri LankaI always thought that tuk-tuks were for short journeys only but in Sri Lanka we found a guy that insisted he could take us from Mirissa to Udawalawe almost as fast as a car. Could it be done...
I’d had an idea to get up before sunrise to take long exposure shots of the sea over the rocks but Glyn convinced me that there weren’t any decent view points we could get to. To be honest it was nice not to get up in the dark and lie in until 7.15am. But was it an opportunity missed? I will never know.
Breakfast was fried egg, toast, noodles, dahl, coconut sambal and bananas and whilst we were eating our tuk-tuk turned up 40 minutes early, the guy was making sure he wasn’t losing this fare!
We said goodbye to the lovely couple who ran the Sanka (as Glyn puts it they don’t pretend to speak English unlike some!) and paid, it was actually even cheaper than expected.
Now tuk-tuk man had agreed a fare to Udawalawe would be 5000 lkr and guaranteed we would do it in 2.5 hours despite google maps estimating a car would take 2
hours 20 minutes. If he didn’t make that time we wouldn’t have to pay, yeah right! It was raining when we woke and was just a few light drops when we left but already tuk-tuk man said that because of the rain, it would now take 3 hours despite it being scorching sunshine soon afterwards. Hmm. Doesn’t matter as we were not in a big hurry and I’m sure at least it would be ‘interesting’. He made a quick detour to pick up his breakfast from his wife who handed it over without looking at us or him. He played Sri Lankan music which added to the ambience but I won’t be downloading the mp3s anytime soon. A joss stick was burning in the front and I wondered what was the point when the tuk-tuk was completely open. I’d correctly predicted that the sun would be burning down on me and so had worn long trousers to protect me.
The journey took us past rice fields, jungles and many small towns. We stopped to take photos of impressive Buddhist temples with giant Buddhas and buffalo in the field plus an interesting elderly gent smoking a cigar that smiled at
me. Coming across a guy herding buffalo along a road, he was happy to left us take photos until I accidentally caused havoc by attempting to run around them to get a photo from the front and they thought they were being chased and started to run. I apologised and the herdsman seemed good natured about it, then went chasing after them before they hit a moped.
Much to our surprise, the tuk-tuk made it in around 2.5 hours and we rolled into Udawalawe around 11.15am! I think the tuk-tuk driver was as surprised as we were!
Our accommodation is a bit nicer than the previous one and we are the only guests. They offered us an extra large bed which made Glyn happy, him being 6 foot 3 inches he often has his feet hanging over the edge of the bed in countries where people are generally shorter. We booked our safaris for tomorrow as the accommodation proprietor’s brother does jeeps, of course.
We walked to a crossroads of shops that is the town looking for an ATM, first two did not accept foreign cards which was a worry but luckily the final one did. Despite
Buffalo
Sri Lanka quite a few tuk-tuk drivers wanting to take us, we decided to walk the 2.9kms to he Elephant Transit Home where around 40 baby orphan elephants up to the age of 5 years reside.
Being low season we hadn’t seen any other tourists at this area until now, but there weren’t too many, so getting a place on the viewing platform was not hard. As the elephants are to be released into the wild once independent enough, they must not get too accustomed to humans and so we were kept around 10 metres away. The elephants entered the feeding area in twos and threes, some galloping in and others pushing and shoving. It was lovely to see them interact, play and bathe in the pool for half an hour.
There were signs in Sinhalese and English stating that the jungle is quiet and we must also be silent. Everyone bar myself and Glyn ignored that and we were engulfed by loud yapping mostly in Sinhalese and German. The staff don’t interact with the public, they just feed the elephants and wash them, but they need to tazer the talkers at least because it did ruin the ambience.
Our evening meal was 5 different Sri Lankan curries, rice and poppadoms followed with fresh fruit as cooked by the guy running our accommodation. We sat outside afterwards as it’s loads cooler than indoors, better still, we were brought out a large fan!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Epic road trip
Wow, he made it in the time promised! That must have been a once in a lifetime experience. Great stuff. Never under estimate a driver trying to provide for his family. The food sounds marvelous.