Thursday 12th and Friday 13th March 2020

It would not have been a holiday in Sri Lanka not to see the elephants, they simply belong to Asia. The Millennium Elephant Orphanage project in Pinawalla was one of the best I heard of so I booked us all three girls to do a 4-hours volunteer job. I tell you, we nearly died in that heat! Children went to school at 6.45 by taxi and we left in our taxi with a driver at 7 am, so we can commence the work at 10 am.

• We started with a tour of a small museum where we got a lot of information about elephants
• Girls got a sickles to cut a long green grass which we than fed to one elephant as a snack – Kandula
• We got gloves and a brush and cleaned Monica’s bed, first throwing the old bedding – with poo as well, clean and disinfect the concrete bed afterwards – this was the hardest part of our experience
• Big vitamin balls from the protein was made by Tamarka, and we fed them to Monika and Rimu
• Girls chopped watermelons, pumpkins, corn and sugar cane with a big sharp machete
• And with a basket full of goodies, we went for a 45minute walk with Monika – that was the most beautiful part of our experience. Her Mahoon (carer) allowed us to approach her, stroke her, we fed her along the way, chatted with her (she understood Czech!), such a privilege. The feeling of her being only ours was amazing. So close to such a beautiful animal I’ve never been before.
• After the walk we bathed her and scrubbed with a coconut shell (and dodged her floating dung!)
• We conducted a tour of a small factory making paper from elephant dung – fascinating!
• We got lunch (rice and curry!) and a certificate!
• Farewell to all nine elephants was a sad one.

We drove to a hotel to relax and remember our special time with elephants. The hotel was by the river where the elephants go swimming each ady at 10am and 2pm.

 We were pretty dead from all the sun so the pool at the hotel with a coffee came in handy.

After breakfast, we enjoyed a 120-minute view of the elephant’s beauty as they were able to bathe with their carers in the river. Splendid.

On the way to Kandy we stopped in the Tearoom, where we saw how tea is being made and we had a tea tasting of 10 kinds of tea – I had some biscuits in my bag, they went well with the tea!

In Kandy, we had a very tasty Tamil vegetarian lunch (something like a big pancake, but made with rice flour and lentils), saw the Temple of the Tooth Relic, and before we set out on a 3.5-hour journey back to Colombo, we managed to see Kandy’s cultural show of dancers accompanied by three drummers.  Walking on the fire was the top for me – I don’t understand how they did it.

The kids were fine with daddy Steve, a friend brought them from school on Thursday and Emi made hoola hoops with cheese for dinner before Steve came home from work at 9pm. Steve picked them up from school on Friday and made steak for dinner! Everything went well, it seems, so I am suggesting, that I should go away more often!

Rennie