Monday, April 11th, 2022 – Kandy
Apr 17th, 2022 by rallyadmin
It’s bright sunny day and the trip today is fairly short. Some breakfast with tea. and we’re off to an elephant sanctuary to wash and feed some elephants. The area is only a few kilometers down the road.
There’s already decent traffic on the road and across the road from our hotel is another sanctuary elephant. But this sanctuary we ate told is more of a display without any chance to get close to the animals. The arrival of small tour buses makes the decision for us: down the road to the first sanctuary.
We get to the sanctuary, park the tuktuks, pay for our tickets and then a guide leads us down a flight of stairs and across a bridge. There are already a few tourists there, a group posing with an elephant and another group down in the small river washing what looks like a possibly dead elephant, more likely the most chill elephants in Sri Lanka.
The guide takes us to a an elephant, Fumari, and has us pose so that we can get our photos patting the animal’s trunk, all the while keeping an eye on us with a small brown eye. Of course, Fumari does this every day, all day so he knows how many times he has to pose and for how long, though he seems to have a strong curiosity about Stewie.
The down a concrete ramp into the river below and into the water followed by Fumari and his mahout. We stand by the edge of the river while Fumari comes down the and laboriously lies down on his side and waits for everyone to have his go at scrubbing the enormous flank of the docile animal. All the while Fumati lies in the water with his head partially submerged occasionally only his trunk above water.
Once everyone has had a chance at scrubbing the animal, the mahout barks some orders at Fumari and he laboriously gets up into a kneeling position and the mahout asks if anyone wants an “elephant bath”. Of course, the first to say yes is Brim.
The mahout helps Brim onto Fumari’s back and the animal gets up on a feet with the mahout barking orders though I’m sure that the barking is for us. Fumari certainly knows the drill. After a pause, Fumari sucks up a load of water into his trunk and flings trunk over his back blowing most of the load on Brim. It looks like the first load of water surprised Brim. Not so, the next three loads.
Fumari kneels down again and Darren swaps places with Brim. It the same cycle, stand, pause, suck up the water and spray it back on the rider. Another three goes and Darren, like Brim completely soaked. Back up the ramp.
Another mahout arrives with bananas to feed Fumari who apparently like this part of the routine quite a lot. He stands there while each of us feeds a dozen or so bananas one at a time to his upturned trunk. Take a banana, place it on the nostrils of the ready trunk, Fumari swiftly tosses the banana into his mouth and returns the trunk for another banana. The whole routine is very patient and polite when you consider that the enormous animal could effortlessly take all of the bananas from the puny human with one swipe of his trunk. Everyone finishes the bananas, take a few more pictures and we head back to the hotel.
We load up the tuktuks and say goodbye to the hotel staff. Wait for the traffic and take off for Kandy, our next stop.
Kandy is a college town and just recently when the protests against the then government started, there were some serious demonstrations that the police quelled with batons and tear gas. There were protests across the small country but the ones in Kandy were the only ones to generate such a strong police response. Soon after the protests started, the government resigned en masse. The protestors chanted “Gota go home” and he did. I have no idea who if anyone is running this place. Nor do the locals though they don’t seem to care very much.
The drive to Kandy started in rolling hills and then turned in a climb with multiple switchbacks. Traffic stuck behind heavy trucks. Passing on blind corners. Buses barreling down the hills in the opposite direction. What’s not to like?
We get to Kandy early in the afternoon and find the Queen’s Hotel in the middle of downtown Kandy across a boulevard that is the signature feature of Kandy, in addition to college and protests. Dave V heads over to the hotel to find where we can park the tuktuks only to return and announce that due to a failure of their generator they have moved our reservations to a sister hotel, the Suisse Hotel, across the lake.
The Suisse Hotel is a renovated old colonial hotel that is way above our usual fare. And it has a pool. And they have cold beer. This will do very nicely, thank you.
Up to the room which is across the hall from the Billiard Room and down the hall from the lounge and the formal dining room. The air con works. The beds are comfortable.
Change in to swimsuit and head down to the pool. Order a beer. Lounge. This is just a fine way to stop.
Obi