3rd Day - Kandy

The day started again today with a delicious omelette at Hotel Ozo Kandy. 🍳 Ganda picked us up on time at 8:00 am to head to our first destination, an elephant orphanage near Kandy. 🐘 I had a bit of an uneasy feeling in the past few weeks, as I had heard some negative things about such orphanages. But I wanted to see and judge for myself. We entered the large area with anticipation, where a total of 60 elephants call home. This home was opened in 1975 and started with a few orphaned or injured animals that were raised there. Ganda tells us that on average three elephants are killed each week, not by poachers, but by farmers. During the dry season, when water and grass are scarce, elephants seek the proximity of humans. They sometimes devastate entire rice fields, and the farmers fear for their livelihood. That's why the farmers mostly kill these elephants if they cannot be driven away and become aggressive. In contrast, elephants in India on average kill three humans per week.

Arriving at the hill, we could look out over the large enclosure and enjoy a beautiful sight of the pachyderms. 🐘🐘🐘

There were no bars, only slightly larger rocks to demarcate the area. At first glance, the elephants seemed to be doing very well. However, upon closer inspection, we noticed that the largest elephants had a chain around one of their feet, not tied up, but they dragged the one-meter long chain behind them. I was bothered by the chains and asked Ganda if it was necessary. He said that the problem is that male elephants normally do not live together in herds, which increases their underlying aggression. Chains have to be put on them to be able to handle them in case of emergency as they can quickly pose a danger to humans. This partially reassured me, but there must be other options, right?

Fortunately, the keepers' interaction with the animals turned out to be dignified and respectful.

The animals could decide for themselves at a wooden fence whether they wanted to interact with people or move away. With great respect, we approached the animals, and they immediately extended their trunks towards us. A brief touch on their backs showed that they were very bristly. 🦔

A short while later, it was bath time and many elephants were led to the nearby river. They were sprayed with water, and it was clear that they enjoyed it very much. The smaller elephants were also very cute, splashing themselves with water using their trunks and playing in the water. 💦 Fortunately, only 1-2 out of 25 had a chain around their feet here.

After two hours, we continued on to the Botanical Garden, which was built by a king in the 18th century. We strolled through this huge complex for two hours. Also impressive were the thousands of fruit bats taking a nap on certain trees. 🦇

On the way back, we stopped at fruit stands again to have a little snack. We bought two red bananas (60 rupees - 30 cents) and also tried a jackfruit, which tasted similar to lychee.🍈

It's a shame that we don't have such a wide selection of vegetables and fruits like in Sri Lanka.🇱🇰