Elephant Training Camp, Kokanadu
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Fri 4 Feb 2011 17:47
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Friday 4th February
Late Tuesday evening we realised our
only chance to have a night away either on the backwaters or up in the tea
plantations would be Wednesday night. Nasser was on hand with a phone number for
the Government, which is the cheapest way of booking tours as there
are no taxes, unlike other operators. So, at 06:30 Wednesday morning, a white
Ambassador arrived to pick us up, Amy had done well again, for all of five
minutes anyway. Minesh, our driver, did not speak a word of English and the
Ambassador was certainly not as nice as the two year old one that we had been in
previously, it was falling apart and it was a long way to the tea plantations in
Munnar!
 It looks nice from
afar!
Kokanadu was our first scheduled
stop, where there is an Elephant Training Camp. If your arrive by 8 then you can
help clean wash the elephants in the river. Setting off at 06:30 gave us plenty
of time to get there, or so we thought before we met Minesh and saw his
car. He didn't have a clue where to go and had to ask for directions 10 times,
something we found shocking as the route we were taking was a very common
tourist route. Anyhow, we arrived around quarter past eight and he
didn't know where to take us. We located all the other ambassadors and made our
way by ourselves down a little road until we found the river, where there were
three elephants having a wash. After Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka
we didn't quite know what to expect but this was fantastic. There were two
mahouts to each elephant giving them a thorough scrub and around a dozen
tourists stood on the shore. Amy soon hitched her dress up to get up close
and personal with the giant beasts and Paul wasn't far behind. Using coconut
husk to scrub the skin, the elephants seemed to be thoroughly enjoying
themselves, and once one side was clean they'd have instructions from a mahout
and get up and lie on their other side. The great thing was that you really got
the feeling that this was for the good of the animal. It was free although the
mahouts did ask for a bit of money, but that was to be expected.
Half an hour or so later and it
was time to go, sadly. When we arrived at the river, Paul and Amy were planning
on telling Minesh to take us back home as they thought he was an imbecile. But
thankfully after that experience their moods had changed and we continued on our
way to Munnar. For breakfast Minesh took us to a local "restaurant" just on the
main road. There were no menus and the men didn't speak English, but we somehow
ended up with a plate of fried chicken, a beef curry, a bowl of curry sauce and
some chapatis - all at 09:30! We were eating local style, and it was
nice!
 Scrub a dub
dub....
 A thorough clean!
 One sat on an elephants back to
turn it round..........The other squeezed the elephants ear
 The big mamma
 Amy with the bigger elephant
and then with the baby one
 Paul scrubbing the
baby
 Time for a wash
down...........Trying to grab Amy's ankle
 Me, up close and
personal
 Look what I can
do!
 School time but the elephant is
blocking the way................A local restaurant
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