The boat that stole the light

A baby elephant enjoying its bath

Today was the day to meet the majestic creatures – elephants! We went to the Elephant Rehabilitation Center at Kottur, which surprisingly was not much popular. But this helped in having a serene, less-crowded atmosphere in the sanctuary. We watched the elephants getting bathed by the mahouts in the water body of Neyyar reservoir. The bathing time of the elephants is on the earlier hours, starting from 9.30 am. After the bathing, we can watch the elephants getting fed at 10.00 am, which is followed by a parade at 10.30 am. At all times, the elephants are accompanied by each of their mahouts. One thing that didn’t feel right to me was that the elephants were chained all the time we were there, though I had heard that unchained elephants were the specialty of the place.

The elephant parade at Kottur Elephant Rehabilitation Center

The elephants were bathing with much happiness, spraying the lake water on their body through their trunks. Also, during the parade, the way they lined up and held the other’s tails with their trunks, could melt anybody’s heart! After filling our hearts with much lovely sights of the Ganeshas, we went for a little spin on the boat. Four of us picked a bowl boat, leaving behind the bamboo rafts and paddle boats, and we were going to find out how great was our pick! The lake was very clean and calming, with natural islands in between. Our boat was the fastest among others and we reached the side of the lake that none of our friends did. As we approached one of the islands, our driver asked us in broken English, ‘go round round?’, and we said ‘Yes, sure!’ as we thought we were now returning to the shore. But, adding to our adventure, the driver made our boat spin in circles, faster and faster! And we are all screaming and enjoying as the sky rotated with us! At this time, we were so farther from rest of our group that nobody could see the amazing spin that we just experienced. As human as we are, Tuna and I requested the driver to do the spin once again in front of our other friends, and witnessing how our little bowl boat was stealing the light was making us giggle like children!

There was one last masti that was waiting for us today! Carrom-board! And that too with the locals who we didn’t have any common languages with! Keralites are amazing!

The road-side carrom!