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RE: A Sri Lankan adventure - Part 2 - Water for the Elephants
Your pictures are breathtaking! This is one of the best posts I've yet to see on Steemit. i've had no idea there was such a place as an 'Elephant Orphange,' much less that people could visit it. If I ever make it to Sri Lanka, this place will be my first stop. How did you ever find out about this place?
When you were interacting with the elephants, what were they like? Did they enjoy the attention? I'm just curious. What a unique opportunity to have an up-close and personal adventure with elephants, I'd love to hear more about how they responded to you!
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the effort to check out my post, it's only a plus you like it as well :)
These elephants used to humans since they were either born in the orphanage or either taken to there at a young age (wounded and abandoned babies). Since they used to humans, there is nothing to worry about. There are some wild angry ones, but those are isolated from humans, they stay in a separate part of the orphanage.
I personally managed to go as close as a half a meter and pet them, my girlfriend was even closer. Animals usually don't harm if they don't feel threatened or their babies threatened.
Up north I had the luck to catch a herd of wild animals, now that is dangerous since they living in the wild with their babies, they not used to humans.
This elephant orphanage is pretty famous in the country, it was established by the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation in the seventies. If you don't know about the place and don't ask around, you prob won't hear about it, since it's 1h 20m away from the closest largeish city, but a true traveller always aims to discover. :)
I appreciate you taking the time to answer. I was just wondering if they were playful or gentle, or neutral towards you. That's very cool that you can get that close, and even pet them. The only elephants I've ever seen were in a zoo - so sad - or at the circus - equally as sad. I hope someday to see them living free, but until then, I can refer back to this post, it's that realistic!
Gentle & neutral, I'd say, also they look like they always smile :)
Yepp, zoo and circus, it's pretty sad, I wish everybody would have the same mindset as you and others who gave feedback to me in the past days re this subject.