All I want for Christmas is . . . my own elephant!! Wednesday's incredibly excellent adventure was all about elephants. Haksar arranged for us to go to the elephant-riding place early this morning (7:00 a.m.). His perpetually smiling tuk tuk driver, Aisam, took us on a 30-minute death-defying ride which, I'm actually getting to like! In fact, when he pulls off a particularly adrenalin-generating maneuver, I lean forward and give him a thumbs up sign. Tim says 'Don't encourage him' and added, somewhat sheepishly, 'I actually wish there was a seatbelt.'
Little did we know that we are in the midst of a 3-day festival celebrating Vishnu, a very important Hindu god, and this is really big for elephants. We got to the ranch and one elephant was getting a lovely bath-
Next to him was a much bigger elephant, very restless, and we were warned, repeatedly, to stay away from him. 'Very fierce' 'Not nice' OK - we're warned.
Time to saddle up and ride! Here comes our very own elephant.
We climb the tower and get ready to mount up. Yes, this is the view from the tower where we're waiting for our ride. Her name is Lakshmi.
Did I say saddle up? I should have said 'blanket up'.
Elephant girl up? (No shoes please.)
Now it's Tim's turn.
Wow!! Is this ever amazing! For one thing, elephants have very wide, very bony spinal columns. Each step throws you from one side to the other on this bony fulcrum. The first couple of steps and I'm convinced we're both going to slide off. But a few steps in and we kind of get the hang of it; you know Tim and I can talk our way through just about anything and now we can add riding tandem on an elephant! Talk about a high!! What an incredible experience!! And all for the grand total of 700INR or about $13.
We 'd learned from, Krishna, our waiter at Sea Splendour, that there's a big elephant parade later in the day as part of a temple festival just a couple of km away for our elephant ride. This is the real thing, all Indians, no tourists as opposed to the festival near Sea Splendour which is 'for tourists.'
Aisam will come back for us at 3:30 and we'll go to the festival and elephant parade which starts at 4. It looks like one of our elephants is heading there also. See you at the festival!
Little did we know that we are in the midst of a 3-day festival celebrating Vishnu, a very important Hindu god, and this is really big for elephants. We got to the ranch and one elephant was getting a lovely bath-
Time to saddle up and ride! Here comes our very own elephant.
Did I say saddle up? I should have said 'blanket up'.
Elephant girl up? (No shoes please.)
Wow!! Is this ever amazing! For one thing, elephants have very wide, very bony spinal columns. Each step throws you from one side to the other on this bony fulcrum. The first couple of steps and I'm convinced we're both going to slide off. But a few steps in and we kind of get the hang of it; you know Tim and I can talk our way through just about anything and now we can add riding tandem on an elephant! Talk about a high!! What an incredible experience!! And all for the grand total of 700INR or about $13.
We 'd learned from, Krishna, our waiter at Sea Splendour, that there's a big elephant parade later in the day as part of a temple festival just a couple of km away for our elephant ride. This is the real thing, all Indians, no tourists as opposed to the festival near Sea Splendour which is 'for tourists.'
Aisam will come back for us at 3:30 and we'll go to the festival and elephant parade which starts at 4. It looks like one of our elephants is heading there also. See you at the festival!
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