Colombo, Sri Lanka - March 30, 2012

Sunrise in Colombo

(Not too many pictures -- very poor satellite today.)

Need a ride?

Arriving in the port this morning, we note that we were being protected by two Sri Lankan Navy gun boats buzzing like dragonflies around the ship, checking out and shooing away the smaller boats in our vicinity.  Something new for us in this interesting part of the world.  This is the maiden stop for Queen Elizabeth here and the port has given us the best pier – huge container crane right off port – and the local equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce has turned out in force.  Beautifully costumed dancers as well!
The tour we’ve selected for this stop is a visit to the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage.  The orphanage was established in 1975 to help baby elephants who had been orphaned during war and abandoned in the jungle.  In more recent times the orphanage began breeding elephants and has become the largest herd of captive elephants in the world.

 

Pineapples for sale

There are four busloads of QE passengers heading to the orphanage, located 90 kilometers from Colombo.  Because of the desire for tourism to return to this war-torn country, we are provided a police escort through the city and towns along the way, where the traffic is definitely in gridlock with a semi-organized collection of walkers, untethered animals, bicycles, tractors, tuk-tuks, cars, trucks and buses.  The police push the traffic out of the way while the buses honk warnings at each other.  This reminds us of our good friend Richard’s great driving in Suriname – inches away from vehicles driving along a highway on the “wrong” side of the road, only this time we are in fact on the wrong side of the road much of the time.  In some cases, these buses are actually driving down the middle of the road.  Miraculously we make it to the town of Pinnawela just in time for the daily elephant walk.  Later we find out that we are being followed by an empty bus, just in case one of our occupied buses poops out:  it’s good to be the Queen!

Each day, the elephants are walked from their open-range orphanage down a short street to the Maha Oya River to bathe and play.  The elephants are accompanied by several men, “mahouts”, who ‘manage’ their movements so they don’t go into the crowds of people lining the road and river’s edge.  There are several hotels at the river’s edge.  We are fortunate to be served a buffet luncheon at the Hotel Pinnalanda Restaurant, which overlooks the elephants frolicking in the water.  We are here for two hours, just enjoying the (tamed-down) local curries and watching the elephants.  We imagine this is what Africa must be like on a gentleman’s safari.

After lunch, Lynn walks to the river’s edge to have her picture taken touching (can’t really say petting) an elephant.  Some people pay to feed the elephants.

Many shops line the road between the orphanage and river.  Interestingly one is selling paper and other items made from elephant poop – too funny.  In the orphanage, you can watch the baby elephants be fed and also participate in more general elephant touching, along with having your picture taken.  It is fun to take the pictures of the elephants with their mahouts minding them with long sticks.  What a beautiful place, with mountains in the background and elephants, free and unhindered, wandering around.  The people of this country are beautiful too – lots of school children and their parents or teachers visiting the orphanage.  The women in their local dress are so colorful.  And the children, who tend to be smaller and very cute, with their gorgeously large, naïve, smiling eyes watching “white skins”, watch them.

Now back to Colombo and the ship.  We again receive a police escort part of the way, to get us through some of the outlying towns with the heaviest traffic.  Our tour guide, “Shah”-whose-real-name-is-unpronounceable, does what he can to assure we are not late in arriving back at the dock.  It is obvious that making the tourists happy is very important to these people.  Along the road there are so many interesting sights. 

Back on the ship, we set sail to our next stop – Cochin, India.  Now known as Kochi, this next port is just around the tip of the Indian continent, north up the west coast but still in the southern part of India.  The ship will be traveling fast through the night to get there in the morning, at around 10:30 am.