From: Sherman Rootberg (biggiroot)
Date: Feb 20, 2007 1:15 PM
Subject: Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA
As we approached the harbor at about 7:00 this morning you could sense old memories returning just from the nearly forgotten smell. Ahh, the illustrious odor of burning garbage. The sent of rotting trash. This is Colombo.
We had booked a whole day tour out to in countryside to an elephant orphanage. Things were not exactly as billed.
We got on a bus, at the again, ungodly hour of 7:30 AM. The air conditioning worked very well as did the mechanicals but this bus was old. The seats were far too small for my far too wide posterior. They were deeply indented for separation which made it impossible to find a comfortable position especially I took two seats. The side of the bus flopped up and back slamming me in the arm continuously. In the city the roads were fairly smooth but might have just as well been unpaved once out of town. Add to this our Indian driver who was really a cowboy. The super highway we used was the size of a neighborhood side street back home and cowboy was darting in and out of traffic constantly. Slamming on the brakes several times every minute and wildly swinging the steering wheel. The weird horn never stopped sounding.
I had not been warned that there was a three hour ride to get to this place. It was, again, interesting if nothing else. In town, what they called housing was total squalor and filth. Garbage and scraps lay everywhere. The actual garbage dump was just a huge hill of garbage with no soil around it. Any home you went by must have been cooking with wood because every one of them had smoke of burning wood being emitted. In the midst of this was the occasional nicely built and very large house. Everything looks dirty. Most of the business and stores we see are shacks. Even the few, that are not shacks, are fronted by dirt with no grass. As we move out to the country, it doesn’t look quite as bad as there is now a lot of thick vegetation in the background and the terrain is hilly and even mountainous in spots. Most of the buildings are still shacks and obviously, no one picks up trash around their property let alone public areas.
Wherever we ran into local people, they seamed warm and friendly. I often wonder if this is because we are tourists even though I have been to a few places, unfriendly to tourists.
Leaving the fenced and walled in port area takes about 15 minutes and is about six miles. Some of this fence is no more then thin chicken wire. I guess they must fear terrorist chickens. However: there are machinegun carrying soldiers everywhere. They are on high alert for terrorists from the north of the island. We are told they are the first ever to use the suicide bomb. Somehow they allowed a woman carrying flowers to cross a security barrier and present these flowers to the prime minister. At the same time she blew herself up also killing the prime minister and several body guards.
We made one pee stop and another twenty minute stop to wait for bridge repairmen to get off the road. The buses finally came to a stop in front of a group of stores in a dusty area. We had to walk about a block down a paved path between buildings and fence. It was almost wide enough for a small car to fit on and several came by as we tried to walk. There was so little room they touched us as they went by. Finally we came to a dirt parking lot and low and behold, a very modern large, nice looking, building with very large glass windows appears. As we enter we discover that air conditioning in buildings must be unheard of in this country. It turns out, this is a place used for wedding receptions and other large meetings and banquets.
Where we enter is about the middle level of the building. There are other areas above and our area is below. We walk down several levels of stairs and see a wide shallow river the building is overlooking. In it are a couple dozen to maybe sixty Pachyderms. Elephant type pachyderms. We had been shown a movie on the ship TV about this place. These were supposed to be babies. The tour said babies. Most of these babies had grown up and there were only a few babies. They were cute though.
They were being managed by trainers, mahouts. They herded the elephants toward us. The river was just one story below the lower level of the building. One large elephant stuck her trunk through the rails and wanted to touch everyone she could. She enjoyed untying Bobbi’s shoe. In another area you could walk down to the river and pet the elephants there. All were tame and seemed to enjoy the people. Several were lying down in the water. Others spewing water from their trunks and some babies were diving under the water. They were fun to watch.
Lunch was a buffet we ate while watching the elephants. The food was good. After lunch we met across the street from where we met. There was supposed to be baby elephant feeding. The main reason to be here was to see the care given these orphans. This feeding was all that was offered.
We walked past an admission gate and then quite a distance to see one chained up elephant. He was a big guy with long tusks. Only a few of the male Indian elephants ever have tusks. The females never so. With African elephants, both male and female have tusks. Only about 11% of the females do not. There was a mahout with this big guy and he seemed friendly and let people touch him and take pictures.
If you are interested, or not, African elephants are larger and their ears are much larger. African elephants are considered un trainable. Even if trained they cannot be trusted. Even females will turn on their trainers every time we were told.
Next it was back to an area closer to where we walked in. There was a very large covered, cement area where two young elephants were chained by front and rear leg. One was pretty small and the other not so small. These were the only two that were to be shown being fed with bottles. What a bummer. First some woman talked over a loud speaker. The speaker was as bad as her accent. We understood not a word. Finally they came out with bottles to feed the babies. I carefully watched my wrist watch. Three seconds. That was it. Six hours of a terrible ride to see what was billed as watching the workings of a baby elephant orphanage and that was as close as we got.
Elephants not trained or use to man are one of the few animals that can be perfectly capable of living in the wild. Even a baby raised in captivity, but not in contact with man, can be turned out to the wild and survive well. The reasons being that they do not have to hunt food and they do not have to be taught to defend themselves from predators. There is nothing big enough to bother a full grown elephant, tame or not. Even a tame elephant will often bully other large animals. The elephants that are use to man have no fear of him. They will seek him out and destroy crops and farmers will shoot them. That is why these orphans cannot ever be put back in the wild.
It was over 100 degrees out and sunny. It was even a very hot day for the locals. Bugs of many descriptions were bothering the hell out of us where we ate and everywhere outside. Of course Bobbi bought stuff. Hot, un air conditioned, buggy stores can’t stop her.
On the way back we saw several schools where kids were getting on buses. All wore uniforms and the little ones were adorable. Many waved to us and they all smiled.
There is a downtown area with tall buildings that we could see in the distance from the ship. There was a shuttle going there but it was time to leave when we got back and we never did get to see it. Maybe it was nicer.
Date: Feb 20, 2007 1:15 PM
Subject: Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA
As we approached the harbor at about 7:00 this morning you could sense old memories returning just from the nearly forgotten smell. Ahh, the illustrious odor of burning garbage. The sent of rotting trash. This is Colombo.We had booked a whole day tour out to in countryside to an elephant orphanage. Things were not exactly as billed.
We got on a bus, at the again, ungodly hour of 7:30 AM. The air conditioning worked very well as did the mechanicals but this bus was old. The seats were far too small for my far too wide posterior. They were deeply indented for separation which made it impossible to find a comfortable position especially I took two seats. The side of the bus flopped up and back slamming me in the arm continuously. In the city the roads were fairly smooth but might have just as well been unpaved once out of town. Add to this our Indian driver who was really a cowboy. The super highway we used was the size of a neighborhood side street back home and cowboy was darting in and out of traffic constantly. Slamming on the brakes several times every minute and wildly swinging the steering wheel. The weird horn never stopped sounding.
I had not been warned that there was a three hour ride to get to this place. It was, again, interesting if nothing else. In town, what they called housing was total squalor and filth. Garbage and scraps lay everywhere. The actual garbage dump was just a huge hill of garbage with no soil around it. Any home you went by must have been cooking with wood because every one of them had smoke of burning wood being emitted. In the midst of this was the occasional nicely built and very large house. Everything looks dirty. Most of the business and stores we see are shacks. Even the few, that are not shacks, are fronted by dirt with no grass. As we move out to the country, it doesn’t look quite as bad as there is now a lot of thick vegetation in the background and the terrain is hilly and even mountainous in spots. Most of the buildings are still shacks and obviously, no one picks up trash around their property let alone public areas.
Wherever we ran into local people, they seamed warm and friendly. I often wonder if this is because we are tourists even though I have been to a few places, unfriendly to tourists.Leaving the fenced and walled in port area takes about 15 minutes and is about six miles. Some of this fence is no more then thin chicken wire. I guess they must fear terrorist chickens. However: there are machinegun carrying soldiers everywhere. They are on high alert for terrorists from the north of the island. We are told they are the first ever to use the suicide bomb. Somehow they allowed a woman carrying flowers to cross a security barrier and present these flowers to the prime minister. At the same time she blew herself up also killing the prime minister and several body guards.
We made one pee stop and another twenty minute stop to wait for bridge repairmen to get off the road. The buses finally came to a stop in front of a group of stores in a dusty area. We had to walk about a block down a paved path between buildings and fence. It was almost wide enough for a small car to fit on and several came by as we tried to walk. There was so little room they touched us as they went by. Finally we came to a dirt parking lot and low and behold, a very modern large, nice looking, building with very large glass windows appears. As we enter we discover that air conditioning in buildings must be unheard of in this country. It turns out, this is a place used for wedding receptions and other large meetings and banquets.Where we enter is about the middle level of the building. There are other areas above and our area is below. We walk down several levels of stairs and see a wide shallow river the building is overlooking. In it are a couple dozen to maybe sixty Pachyderms. Elephant type pachyderms. We had been shown a movie on the ship TV about this place. These were supposed to be babies. The tour said babies. Most of these babies had grown up and there were only a few babies. They were cute though.
They were being managed by trainers, mahouts. They herded the elephants toward us. The river was just one story below the lower level of the building. One large elephant stuck her trunk through the rails and wanted to touch everyone she could. She enjoyed untying Bobbi’s shoe. In another area you could walk down to the river and pet the elephants there. All were tame and seemed to enjoy the people. Several were lying down in the water. Others spewing water from their trunks and some babies were diving under the water. They were fun to watch.Lunch was a buffet we ate while watching the elephants. The food was good. After lunch we met across the street from where we met. There was supposed to be baby elephant feeding. The main reason to be here was to see the care given these orphans. This feeding was all that was offered.
We walked past an admission gate and then quite a distance to see one chained up elephant. He was a big guy with long tusks. Only a few of the male Indian elephants ever have tusks. The females never so. With African elephants, both male and female have tusks. Only about 11% of the females do not. There was a mahout with this big guy and he seemed friendly and let people touch him and take pictures.If you are interested, or not, African elephants are larger and their ears are much larger. African elephants are considered un trainable. Even if trained they cannot be trusted. Even females will turn on their trainers every time we were told.
Next it was back to an area closer to where we walked in. There was a very large covered, cement area where two young elephants were chained by front and rear leg. One was pretty small and the other not so small. These were the only two that were to be shown being fed with bottles. What a bummer. First some woman talked over a loud speaker. The speaker was as bad as her accent. We understood not a word. Finally they came out with bottles to feed the babies. I carefully watched my wrist watch. Three seconds. That was it. Six hours of a terrible ride to see what was billed as watching the workings of a baby elephant orphanage and that was as close as we got.Elephants not trained or use to man are one of the few animals that can be perfectly capable of living in the wild. Even a baby raised in captivity, but not in contact with man, can be turned out to the wild and survive well. The reasons being that they do not have to hunt food and they do not have to be taught to defend themselves from predators. There is nothing big enough to bother a full grown elephant, tame or not. Even a tame elephant will often bully other large animals. The elephants that are use to man have no fear of him. They will seek him out and destroy crops and farmers will shoot them. That is why these orphans cannot ever be put back in the wild.
It was over 100 degrees out and sunny. It was even a very hot day for the locals. Bugs of many descriptions were bothering the hell out of us where we ate and everywhere outside. Of course Bobbi bought stuff. Hot, un air conditioned, buggy stores can’t stop her.On the way back we saw several schools where kids were getting on buses. All wore uniforms and the little ones were adorable. Many waved to us and they all smiled.
There is a downtown area with tall buildings that we could see in the distance from the ship. There was a shuttle going there but it was time to leave when we got back and we never did get to see it. Maybe it was nicer.
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