Fridays at the ashram are our “day off” from the daily schedule, so most people break free and go out for day trips. We’d heard on an elephant sanctuary nearby where we could help wash the elephants, so we headed out in the morning. When we arrived the washing had already started, and two female elephants were in the lake lying on their sides, while their handlers were hard at work scrubbing them down. To wash them they use what looked like a quarter of a dried coconut, using the inside to rub them.
We were invited to grab a piece of coconut and get right in the water and start scrubbing them down. The handlers were scrubbing really hard while the rest of us were more gentle, so not sure if we were really effective help or not! The elephants seemed to be enjoying it either way. After a little while, they got the elephants to sit up and then lay down on their other side to continue the washing. Their skin is really tough, and covered in all these bristly black hairs.
When the washing was finished, the elephants stood up and walked up to the edge of the lake so that we could feed them bananas. On our way to the sanctuary we picked up 3kg of bananas, so glad we did that! I held them in my hand one at a time, and the elephants would grab them with their trunks. They were sniffing around the group and grabbing the bananas from everyone’s hands.
Next up they took us to see this 79 year old elephant, and he totally looked like an old man! We got to feed him some bananas as well, but instead of letting him grab them with his truck, we placed them directly into his open mouth. Lots of elephant slober!
After that we got to go for a really short ride on one of the elephants. We got up on this platform that was level with the elephants back, and climbed on. Three of us got on together. I was right up at the front on the shoulders and with each step could feel the elephant shifting weight to each side. The whole thing was such an awesome experience, all for about $5.00 CAD.
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