Elephants

Riding on elephants

 

We went in an open truck from the hotel to a place at the edge of the national park.

 

Photo 1 truck ride

 

There was a collection of tourists there and about 10 elephants were waiting, already with their riders sitting behind their heads and the seat for the tourist on their backs. We climbed up some wooden steps to a platform and then stepped out onto the back of the elephant. The seat was a kind of wooden tray, with a post at each corner and a low wooden railing all around. We sat 4 to an elephant, facing outwards, with our legs either side of the corner posts. Our elephant was called Kanchikali and she was 32 years old. Some of the elephants had patterns drawn on their faces and ears. Their skin was a dark grey colour and they had coarse sparse hair on their heads. The edges of their ears and some of their faces and the ends of their trunks were pale pink and freckled with grey spots.

We headed off into the forest – a parade of elephants. Mostly we followed in line, but sometimes an elephant took a slightly different route and pushed its own way through the undergrowth. The motion was very rocky, but after a while we got used to the gentle lurching. The mahout had stirrups made from rope and he pushed his bare feet behind the elephant's ears to urge her on. He had a wooden stick that he occasionally hit her with on one side of the head and shouted and talked to her. He also had a metal spike with a hook, but fortunately he didn't use that.

It was difficult to get good photographs, because of the rocky motion of the elephant's walk.

 

Photo 2 of Kieran, Robert, Joe and Brian on their elephant

Photo 3 of me on the elephant

Photo 4 of mahout

 

We crossed an area of open grass where local women were cutting the grass with small sickles and came to a river. The elephants waded across, stopping occasionally for a drink. Coming out on the other side of the river the bank was very muddy and the elephants carefully chose to put their feet in the prints of the elephant in front.

 

Photo 4 of crossing a muddy ditch

Photo 5 of crossing the river

 

The elephant rider pointed out a very small crocodile in a swampy pond, a monkey high in a tree and several types of deer. Then the cry came from in front that there were rhinos. The elephants gathered around and we could see a mother and a baby rhino. The baby rhino was frightened. They both looked like their skins were too big for them, with massive folds dividing the skin into what looked almost like separate plates.

 

Photo 6 of watching the rhinos

Photo 7 of mother and baby rhino

 

We left them to it and continued on through the forest. Occasionally an elephant would reach out with its trunk and grab hold of a bunch of leaves on a tree and rip them off. They seemed to be particularly fond of the banana leaves.

Theresa dropped her hat and the rider turned the elephant round and spoke to her and she picked the ht up in her trunk and passed it over her head to the rider. Theresa had her hat back, complete with a smear of elephant snot!

On the way back the parade spread out and at times there were no other elephants in sight – just us alone in the forest. We paired up with another elephant and the riders spotted a family of wild pigs in the undergrowth. We stopped to take a look, but the elephants did not seem to like it at all. They banged their trunks on the ground and made a booming sound like a drum and we could feel the vibrations from this through their body. They lifted their trunks and trumpeted and stamped their feet. The pigs ran off and the elephants settled down.

When we got back to the start we climbed back off the elephants onto the wooden platform and down the steps. Our guide gave a tip to the elephant riders by putting a note in the elephants trunk and she passed it over her head to the rider.

 

Photo 8 of the Kanchikali receiving her tip

 

Washing elephants

 

Later on 4 of the elephants came to our hotel, each with a rider, but bare backed, no saddle, as earlier. We were told we would have the chance to take the elephants down to the river and wash them, 'Be prepared to get wet.' The elephants lay down and we were told to get on behind the rider, two to an elephant. I couldn't imagine how this would work, but a stool was brought and with a leg up I was sitting astride the elephant's neck, holding tightly to the waist of the mahout, then Joe got on behind me and held on too. Thankfully the skin and coarse hair of the elephant meant that it was not in the least slippery and we felt surprisingly safe It was a sort walk to the river and when we were there the rider urged the elephant down into the water and she waded in up to her tummy. Then she kneeled down and rolled over and we all fell off laughing right into the river. The elephants lay down very still right under the water, occasionally lifting out the end of their trunk to breathe. We sloshed water over their heads and backs and sometimes they squirted water over us. We spent about half and hour with them, just playing around. They were very calm and gentle, but absolutely enormous beasts. It was very special.

 

Photo 9 of all in the river

Photo 10 about to be dunked again

Photo 11 of Kieran and Brian bareback elephant riding