We spend the morning packing up our
purchases and sending them home by Fedex.
A process that should have taken
30 minutes at the most, takes the better part of 3 hours. Finally it is done and we feel relatively
confident that our goodies should arrive home at roughly the same time as we
do. Lucky Jase had his Leatherman handy to cut up the box as the courier was
ill equipped . . . we even used our own bathroom scales to weigh the box! Mmmmm
The rest of the day we have booked into
something called ‘Elephantastic’.
Sanjay drops us at the Elephant Village after some heavy
traffic delays due to a political conference in town. The whole city is in backup, blocked off and
just mad. We finally get through and out
to the rural outskirts.
We are met by the owner, a young man with a
kind and gentle manner. We are introduced
to our elephant, Burli (or something like that) and we touch, feed and hug
her. She is lovely. 28 years old and 8 months preggers and while
we stand with her, we can see the baby moving in her side. We are taken for an elephant ride out to an old village. Hmm, we think barren fields might be a better description, but the peace is wonderful. All you can hear is the elephants feet shuffle, the occasional grunt or chatter of the mahout and the occasional rumble of the elephants. It’s bliss. Wendy suggests we go buy sleeping bags and come back here for the night. . . another time. The temperature is perfect, the sound levels are perfect and until they tell us that the holes in the ground are ‘rats’ the idea seemed perfect.
We are given the opportunity to ‘paint’ our
Burli, but we both agree we don’t need to do that. It is a Rajasthan tradition but it doesn’t
mean anything to us. We give Burli a hug
goodbye, thank her for letting us spend time with her and head back to the car
for our trip back into madness.
Sanjay has been waiting for us, sleeping in
the car, with the windows up. Did we mention it was a warm day? OMG. Windows down to be able to breathe and
then more traffic madness ( due to
political conference) and then home. The
morning seems so far away and while we have only been out 5 hours, once again,
we are ready for a early night. 
 |
| She liked me . .leaning in for a nice cuddle |
not sure if she liked me or not.. whacked me in the head with her ear several times.
