I never in my life thought I’d be at the wrong end of an elephant, close enough to be cleaning up its poo and having to watch out for more deliveries, but that’s just a day to day event when a volunteer at the Pinawala Elephant Orphanage. I thought getting sprayed by an elephant was something that only happened in films with trained elephants but I think elephants have got more of a sense of humor than they’re credited with and are far more likely to spray you in pure jest or because they can.

Getting to spend time with elephants you realise just how clever they are and how lively. When they’re all playing together they slide down the river banks like it’s a game or almost frolic (I know that’s not a word people may associate with elephants) in the rain. Some of them enjoy a good rough scrub with coconuts, like a bath, and some are more standoffish and only like some of the mahouts, they’re like people that way, all of them with totally different personalities. They’re also amazingly intelligent and can be trained to do all sorts of things to only what seem like tiny vocal commands.

As well as the orphans I had the opportunity to see some pregnant mums and a baby only a few hours old. Can and elephant ever be considered to be tiny – the answer is yes, and like a foal taking its first ungainly steps. We were able to ride the elephants and to go on an elephant safari and see them in the wild.

I would recommend this experience to anyone who wants to live a different life for a few weeks, to get closer to nature and to do something totally different with their holidays. You see so much more than you would as a tourist and though the work can be hard at times, and you do get strong, fit and tired mucking out the elephants, the afternoons are all spent by the river relaxing with the group of 70 or so elephants and that’s another experience I can believe I had. The more you put into this the more you’re going to get out of it and though you can take time out from the rest of the group if you want I was lucky enough to be there with people who were really committed and though we could have slept in later and spent less time by the river in the afternoon, skipping the effort of getting all the elephants down there, we all wanted to spend as much time as possible mucking in. Literally.

Written by  Diego Thoms.

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