The summer when we bathed Elephants

When families of three long time friends go on a trip it is a ride with unlimited fun and joy.  That was how one of our trips to Karnataka was.  Summer of 2010 we visited Dubara forest as part of our trip.  We had toured Coorg of Madikeri for two days and left for the Dubara Forest visit around 8 pm on 21 May 2010. We checked in to the already reserved cottages of the Jungle Lodges and Resorts and it was a dark and cloudy night.  We sat outside the cottages sharing horror stories, scaring the kiddos and having a blast of time.  We retired late and woke up early to see the Elephants before it gets hot.

Our cottage was on one bank of the river Cauvery and the Elephant camp on the other. The river was very pleasant, pure and quite.  The trees on the banks of the river were very old and a tree was actually a hybrid of 2 different types and had two kinds of leaves.  We sat under this tree and had our breakfast and after that went on boating to the Elephant camp.

The activities planned spaced across 3 hrs and we did not know how the time went by.  The Elephants were of different sizes and ages and so well trained, behaved and cute. I think Elephant is the only animal that looks cute despite its size.  So to begin with we joined the Naturalist (Trainer) in bathing a couple of Elephants.  He allowed us to oil the trunk, forehead and legs first and asked us to scrub using a tight scrubber.  Children were so excited that they fell all over the place and scrubbed the friendly animals.  When it was time to wash them off, the moment kids started pouring water on them with huge mugs they started showering us in turn using their trunks and it was so much of fun.  We had heard that The Elephants in this camp are well trained and are very human friendly and were pleased to experience more than what we had expected. 

After the bathing came the riding, initially it was scary to get on them but a little help from the Naturalist motivated the kids to go ahead, all this while the trained kept loading us with the daily routine, eating habits and sleeping habits of the Elephants.  It was an informative and enjoyable tour.  

The most interesting part of the day was feeding the Elephants.  Their diet includes porridge made of the flour of Ragi (finger millet).  It is cooked in huge bowls, so huge that I had never seen before. And each time the animal gobbles football sized porridge. We all were allowed to feed it with the instructions of the naturalist.  And it was a great experience to see them eat so much so fast, the tongue of the elephant is so big and thick it felt strange to touch it. And with that the three hour activity of one group was done with and even we were very tired, hungry and ready to leave after all this.