There are many establishments like this across the island, and they are catered more as a tourist attraction than an adoption facilitator. Still, only a few of us had seen one or two elephants so far, so we were excited.
Walking through the gates, it seemed like a well-funded place with open space for elephants to roam.
The cheeriness was quickly haunted by the sound of chains, though.
Clinking iron swung against an elephant’s side as she strolled passed us. We entered the first pavilion where elephants were chained to the concrete floor, most with stained streams on their faces feeding from their eyes.
The employees shouted or prodded the animals to their posts and collected tips for letting people pet their tired trunks. Overall, the orphans appeared ragged, zapped and barely kept alive.
For a culture that views the elephant as a sacred and precious animal, I figured this was not the typical treatment they received.
As we walked to the other spectacle areas, we were disgusted, some in tears. The elephants danced in their excrement trapped by their chained legs; one of the babies even had two feet chained, crossed together she couldn’t turn around.
Some of the larger ones were trained to carry logs into the pavilion with their trunks. I imagined they could have carried three times as much weight if at their full strength.
The tour ended in the vast field of chopped limber littered in paddies of mud where the herd collected and fed. There was one male elephant who was separated from the rest of the herd in his own area of bushes.
Interesting there was only one grown male.
The family of animals was like dirty ghosts roaming the foggy landscape. If a restless young one ran out of the log bounds, one of the workers would chase it and probe it with a spear contraption.
Disturbed, the group did not want to stay longer.
Before leaving, we used the bathrooms, which were hands down the nicest ones I had used in Sri Lanka. Finding that odd, I looked around and noticed the facilities and lay out of the orphanage were as quality grade as what one would find in a zoo or amusement park in the U.S.
There were also floods of tourists swimming through the place.
There was obvious money flow pouring in, I wondered what minute percentage went to the elephants who were supposedly being rehabilitated there.
Though it was not exactly enjoyable, it was an insight worthy of seeing. What other treasures of Sri Lanka were being exploited to rake in outsider money? It inspired me to my keep eyes open when traveling in this dynamic country and train myself to see what isn’t mean to be noticed.