Sri Lanka (August 2002)

Besides seeing elephants, we also visited a lot of other cool places while in Sri Lanka. Here are just a few:

Helga's Folly: This is one of the most fun hotels I've ever stayed in... It is in the mountains outside Kandy. It's very over-the-top, and the bedrooms certainly weren't great, but I forgave them that for the experience of being able to hang out in the main rooms and the amazing feasts we had each evening. This is years ago now so I would check out recent hotel reviews before going there, but certainly back then it was worth a visit. In case you're wondering about the choice of music, it's because they had this playing on the old gramophone when we first arrived. :-)




Polonnaruwa Temple: This was my favourite of the temples we visited, I wish we'd had more time to explore the ruins as everywhere you looked there was interesting detail.



Sigiriya Rock Temple: It was a *long* way up. I didn't make it all the way, because the last part of the stairs were metal slats that you could see through and I got really dizzy... so I stayed down on the level below and watched the monkeys playing, while Dave went up to the top - with the camera.



Potgal Vitara statue: This giant buddha wasn't far from the Polonnaruwa Temple.




Dambulla Rock Temple: Speaking of Buddhas, we also saw a whole hall full at them at the Dambulla temple




Driving in the Tea district: We went up in the mountains for a few days, lots of winding curves and rural vistas occasionally mixed with spectacular views.



Visiting a spice garden: Amazing to see it all growing..

Sri Lankan Elephants (Aug 2002)

I only recently got round to digitising all the video from our Sri Lanka holiday back in August 2002. Here are some of the highlights which feature animals - especially elephants, as seeing them had been one of the main reasons for the trip:

A ride on Nonna Elephant: we went on an hour long safari with a lovely friendly elephant called Nonna. Nonna was a huge fan of bananas, and partial to the odd pineapple or two as well... needless to say, we fed her loads, to the point that she did some remarkable yellow cannonball poos enroute!



Elephants at Pinnawala orphanage: This is like it sounds, a sanctuary where both elderly and young elephants come to live out their lives. Besides just the wonderful opportunity to see so many elephants so close up, my favourite parts were when I got to bottlefeed a baby elephant and help wash another elephant in the river. :-)



Wild elephants at Uda Walawe: In the course of a several hour jeep drive through this national park we saw lots of wild elephants. These are the best bits, as captured on camera.



Uda Walawe elephant orphanage: It's not that widely known (or at least it wasn't in 2002), but the Uda Walawe national park also has an elephant orphanage. It's for all the young elephants who are orphaned in the park, and they keep them in a separate area alongside the park and then gather every day just for feeding but with minimal human handling. Once they're old enough to survive on their own, the orphan herds are released into the park and they're encouraged to be wild again. My favourite bit was how they were released in pairs to walk up to the feeding area, so no-one got crushed, and also how the really tiny babies were paired with some of the much older ones who were acting like big brothers to them. :-)



Elephant at Temple of the Tooth: This lovely elephant had tusks and was so tame that you could have your photo taken holding them.



These were the very first elephants we saw - but they were far away in the distance... luckily our video camera had an amazing zoom. :-)



And finally... it wasn't only elephants we met.

We got to see a Porcupine family:



Also lots of lovely baby turtles: