The Most Wonderful Festival!

We're off to the festival!  And, as promised, we are the only non-Indians in sight.  And all nine elephants are decked out (and chained) and ready for the parade.

The rhythm band accompanies the procession.

After a circuit of the festival grounds, all nine elephants parade out into the street!

Now there's a traffic jam!!  And just like this amazing country, it somehow works.  Imagine nine elephants on any street in the US!!  The three of us run to the tuk tuk and follow in their wake.  Aisam tells us they're headed for the temple.  We're in pursuit, as 'hot' as our 3-wheeled wonder with the death-defying driver can go.

We turn into a dirt lane and about 300m in, we're approached by a man who gestures and tells Aisam something which he understands because we pull off and the three of us get out and pursue on foot.  and here is perhaps the most unbelievable part of this adventure.  We are running in-between trees, keeping the elephants in sight . . .

And this man across the dirt lane waves at me, smiles, and makes some sort of gesture.  I smile back, tap Aisam on the shoulder and point out smiling/waving man.  They exchange words and Aisam gestures to both of Tim and me to 'come, come.'  And there we are, surrounded by this smiling, gracious family, three generations, all eager to talk to us.  Chairs appear along with two cups of the 'traditional Kerala drink', a mixture of coconut milk, raisins, spices, shredded coconut and some sort of thickener.  'Sit, sit'  'Where are you coming from?' 'Are you liking Kerala?' 'Where are you staying?' 'What is your name?'  Tim and I nearly cry when the father announces, 'You are our honored guests for the festival.'  And they didn't even know we were coming!  Here is the family photo.

We didn't get all the relationships, but the white-saried lady is Mummy, the fellow in the lavender shirt (smiling/waving man) is the son and he has two sisters.  One of the sisters and her family is just about to move into their new house.  Her son announces proudly 'I have a new house.' And we must take the tour!   And, of course, have more Kerala drink.

Proud family outside new house.

Whoever built this did a fabulous job.  It is truly built to last and they are so proud to be able to show us every room!  Tim saying goodbye to this remarkable family and a truly touching encounter.  Check out the boy with the camera phone!  He must have taken 50 shots of us while we were there.  Imagine the story he will have to tell his friends!

Blanket up, Elephant Girl

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!