And then there were elephants...

Well yesterday was a holiday here in Kochi, so we had the day off. We arranged for a tour of an elephant kraal (basically an elephant reserve) that was about an hour away from home. Our tour guide wanted us to be there around 7:30 in the morning, so it was a pretty early start to our day off.

The drive to meet our tour guide at the elephant kraal was interesting. It was a mix of city driving on our way out of kochi, scenic tours through local villages, and also a little “highway” driving. (I say “highway” because these are the only roads with lines actually painted on them) I am still trying to get used to the driving here. Everyone drives wherever they want on the road regardless of whether traffic is coming in the other direction or not. If you want to move over to another “lane” while someone else is occupying your desired space, all you do is beep your horn and start to merge. People just move. It is not uncommon to see up to 5 or 6 people riding on one motorcycle here either. However, if you are a native Kochi driver, you will still recklessly merge into the course of a family mounted on a motorcycle without a second thought. In addition, if a kochi driver finds himself driving straight toward another driver in an inadvertent attempt at chicken, he will just beep the horn and somehow avoid a mangling accident. The drives are usually pretty quiet, mainly because we all stare out the sides of our windows at all that is going on around us. It is sensory overload—like Times Square with less neon and a lot more trash.

After getting lost only a handful of times, we arrived at the elephant kraal. We were quickly greeted by our tour guide speeding up on his moped. He guided us away to a quiet breakfast he had prepared for us. It consisted of fresh cocoanut out of the shell with a straw. Pineapple, plantains, cocoanut rice flakes and fresh vegetables. After lunch, we took a 15 minute hike down the very skinny foot-roads of the local village. It was humid out and the small dwellings seemed to be squeezed into the spaces between trees. There was very little light that made it through the tops of the trees—making it feel like I was in a scene from the movie Congo. Walking down the skinny stone-laid paths, looking at all the dense green, and hearing all the jungle sounds all the different birds made, I couldn’t help but realize that I was in a whole different world from what I was used to.



A short few minutes later, and light emerged from around the bend. We approached the banks of a river where several elephants were being washed by the locals. The locals used pieces of cocoanut shells to wash the elephants as they laid down in the river. This went on for about an hour while people took turns rolling up their pants and taking their turn with the shell. Above me there was a single free cow peacefully eating grass. And next to him was a local man beating the ground with a thin stick. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was “protecting us.” I didn’t ask from what, I just assume that he was watching for snakes. I let this nice man be. Soon I became excited that, although I had not yet seen the popular “monkey stick”, I discovered the importance of the “snake stick.”










From there, the elephants slowly raised from the water, and covered us in a shower of water he splashed with his trunk. We walked up the same dark winding path to the elephant’s home at the elephant kraal. There at the kraal, we were invited to ride one of the larger male elephants. In order to ride, you had to climb up a set of stairs that led to a platform about 12 feet off the ground. Here the elephant would strife over and let you climb on. We all got on and the rest is a little blurry. The thing felt like it 25 feet wide. Each time it took a step, you could feel all the bones and muscles moving around. Just the movement of this was almost enough to send you straight to the ground. After about a 10 minute ride, the elephant made his way and he was guided back to the human dock where he let us all climb off him. Thank God, because I was not looking forward to a broken arm in the village hospital.








Following this, our guide took us to see where their prized sandalwood trees grow. From there we went to his plantation where we saw a group of workers husking rice in one of his rice fields. The women who were husking, we were told earn 350 rupees a day. That figures out to be around $7.40 USD. Not quite minimum wage. After this, our guide invited us in to have fresh cakes and cookies that his mother had baked. Good but maybe a bit risky.





This day of fun and 2 meals cost me 500 Rupees—that’s $10.57 USD.