Sri Lanka day 10: Many elephants drowned out by ignorant Germans

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Crikey, day 10 already! Must be time to move on too as we've been in this place for THREE whole nights. The people have been lovely but the bathroom doesn't drain properly so you have more sand in your feet when you come out than when you went in. Also the fan is crap and nights have been very hot-during another power cut last night the room would have baked bread.
But the breakfasts were good and plentiful and included in the bargain price of just over £6 per night. No haggling, no pretending to know English, just £6 a night.
The other day our tuk tuk driver had introduced us to his son who had a tuk tuk too. Quelle surprise!
He had offered to take us to Uda Walawe for 5000lkr in under 2 1/2 hours. Claire had seen that it takes 3 hours in a car (and I'd seen that it costs 9500lkr in a taxi) so this was quite a challenge....especially as he said we didn't have to pay if it took longer. He knew a road though, a shortcut.
Yesterday he gave us a free lift back from the whale boat so we could arrange a pick up time. Despite the confusion of him thinking we were leaving yesterday he was 40 minutes early this morning. And then when we were loaded up he had to nip home to get his breakfast from his wife. Was this counted in the 150 minute challenge?
No, hang on, because of the rain he says it may now take 3 hours. Do we allow him this leeway? Do we stamp our feet and storm off if it takes 151 minutes? No, wait, it's 180 minutes now. And then he stopped so we could take photos of water buffalo in a field and a fabulous Buddhist temple or two. And then there's the time Claire nearly lost a guy his whole herd of water buffalo while she took his picture. Is this all counted in the 180 minutes or do we add it on?
This is a whole £25 we're talking about here....but then he is playing Sri Lankan music as we go along rather than Western pop pap crap. And he has a four year old daughter....should she starve tonight because of 60 seconds?
On the way I saw a motorbike overtaking a motorbike overtaking a motorbike overtaking a bicycle....on a single carriageway with no road markings.....and we were coming the other way.... And all was fine.
And we got to Uda Walawe in.....144 minutes! Our driver's daughter can eat tonight!
We arrived at a nice looking place called Nature Park with friendly, helpful, welcoming staff. They offered us the choice of two rooms, one of which had an extra long bed that was a four poster with mosquito nets around it. We went for that one, we have two fans in the room too and all for £6 a night. Oh and we had a welcome drink of freshly squeezed orange juice. Can't be bad.
We chatted about safaris and we are now doing two tomorrow. That left us time to go to the elephant transit home today. This is exactly what it says and is a home for damaged Transit vans that have been squashed by elephants. Or a place that cares for abandoned or orphaned elephants before releasing them back into the wild. It's definitely one of those two things. Either way it's supported by the Born Free Foundation.
There are a number of feeding times throughout the day which are the best times to visit. If you're still thinking this is about Transit vans you'll have to work out for yourself why they need feeding and what they're fed with as I've already taken this 'joke' way too far. Just call me Michael Mcintyre.....
First though we walked into town to find an ATM. The first one kept spitting Claire's card out, the second said 'no foreign cards' but thankfully the last one in town gave us some rupees.
Armed with ice creams and much to the amesement of a few tuk tuk drivers we set off to walk to the elephant transit home. The distance varied depending who you asked but was probably 2km or so. We said hello back to a lot of children along the way and bought some bananas to eat.
The orphanage didn't open until about 1/2 an hour before feeding time and then we paid our £2:50 each and headed for the viewing platform. There was a sign that quite explicitly said 'The jungle is silent, you too be silent' that sadly wasn't in German too. I bet they could understand it though or their guide could have told them to shut the hell up.
We saw a wonderful spectacle as about 40 orphaned elephants from as young as a couple of months were fed. They wander in a huge jungle enclosure for most of the day but know when their feeding times are and all lumber up to be fed and watered bang on cue. They are released back into the wild when they are 5 but for now they are looked after.
There's a bit of jostling goes on at the feeding station which is controlled by a man with a piece of bamboo. I didn't like him hitting some of the calves with it but I guess they know what they're doing and, as an elephant's skin is 2-3cm thick it musn't hurt anyway.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to listen to the sounds of the elephants as well instead of a cacophony of German babble? We moved away from them in the end before we were tempted to get bamboo stick man to sort them out.
The fed elephants also had some leaves to chow down on and a watering hole to have a wash before herding back off into the jungle. We had a wander round the information centre and expected to end up in a shop or something but no. This ain't Alton Towers! It was amazing to see so many elephants all together and it's great to know that they're being looked after and will be returned to the wild one day.
The walk back aroused the interest of more tuk tuk drivers but we were determined to please our Apple watches and achieve all our exercise goals for the day. Dinner was taken outside at our accommodation and was a feast for the eyes and stomach. We had a big bowl of rice, five different curries, poppadoms, mixed salad, watermelon and bananas.....and all for £2.70 each! It was really nice too and we had a chat about football, tattoos and cars with the restaurant owner after which was all great. We have to get an early night tonight...we are being picked up at 5:30!!

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

SL travel regrets...
We didn't have time to fit the Elephant Transit Home into our plans, and I regret that now - it's the type of organization we like to support. I'm disappointed that you didn't get bamboo stick man to sort out the idiot tourists - sounds like they needed to learn some manners ;)