So the next day we woke up very early for a surprise. We went out of the hotel and there was a truck waiting for us , so we got in the back of the truck and drove away. When we got there we saw lots of elephants and it appeared to be that we were going to ride an elephant, I was very excited. They put on rag round his tummy and a colourful king's coat and a metal encasing on the top. I rode on the neck while mum and dad and Gabe were in the metal casing. IT was fantastic. We went along the river bank and we went passed our hotel. WE saw king fishers, and we saw hornbills... which are huge, in the trees. The river was misty because it had just rained. The elephant's name was Muttu, which means Pearl, she was 24, so a very young elephant, not like the one I talked about in the temple of the tooth relic. We fed Muttu bananas and the man was very funny standing next to us, when she did a big poo, the man said 'toilet stop, too many bananas' ha ha ha.
It takes two years to train an elephant. They prize their elephants , they treat them like kings or queens. They know 26 commands and the owner who trains them speaks in Singhala and their own language. When you see people poaching them that's terrible, because they are precious creatures.
Then we came back and had a lovely breakfast.. I had bacon sandwich.. yummy. Jeevan served us on our verandah overlooking the jungle. There was a lovely pool which looked like a natural spring water pool. so then we went for a swim.
In the afternoon we did an elephant safari, it was scary at first because an elephant chased us. It chased one and then turned around. When mum and I work out how to put on video you will see how quickly an elephant can run! The first sightings of wild elephants was a whole group , mums and their babies. A male elephant stays with his mum until he's sixteen, then he goes solo. So if you see an elephant by itself, it's a male elephant... if they have tusks they call them tuskers. when we went along, we saw lots of other elephants which was amazing. About a quarter into the safari we saw a baby elephant on its' own. Our safari guide contacted the manager to go and have a look as mother elephants never go far from a young baby, maybe she was hurt so they brought out a search party. Near the end of our amazing adventure... with a safari massage thrown in (that's because it's very bumpy!) we saw a changeable hawk eagle. He was in a dead tree because he was hunting and he had a good view without leaves to get in the way. They have natural fires in the jungles and the guides put them out, after the fire there is lots of new grass so the elephants congregate there.
