We have been in Sri Lanka recently.This is the first of idontknowhowmanyyet posts from there...
Our travel itenerary was based on the most popular stops of all travel agencies I could find, and I have to admit, that at that time I was planning the itenerary, I knew nothing about Sri Lanka and its places. I just paste and copied the highlights from different websites.
We flew in Colombo very early in the morning.Right from there, we traveled to our first stop - Elephant Orphanage in Pinnawala. It is most controversial place in Sri Lanka I guess. Some people love it, some people hate it. Its prime purpose was to take care of little elephant orphants. To be honest, I am not an expert, I have no idea whether you can adapt the orphants to the wild life (or safari life), whether they can be welcomed friendly by the other elephants, so it is hard to judge. But I have to admit, we had very mixed emotions about this place. At some point, we felt it is worse than a ZOO, because some elephants had chains around their necks. The most awkward moment was watching tourists feeding the elephant babies. People pay extra money just to feed those poor little creatures from milk bottles in a concrete arena, surrounded by so many people, and it takes like 5 seconds until the baby elephant finishes the bottle. This felt like circus really...Maybe it need to be like this in order to get more money to maintain such an orphanage, but one thing is obvious - these animals are used to people much more than they should be and we definitely can not talk about natural conditions at this place.
I liked better the other part of our visit here - the bathing of elephants in the local river, but this was mostly because of beatiful scenery around - the river, the palms and a lot of elephants - it was impressive, I have to admit! But there are always the care takers, who are pushing them into water to lay down and let themselves to be washed. For some extra money you can wah them too.
Conclusion? You can skip this attraction without any regret, but if you dream about seeing a large group of elephants so close-up, I am not sure if you manage anywhere else in Sri Lanka but here.
Prednedávnom sme sa vrátili zo Srí Lanky. Toto je prvý zo zatiaľneviemkoľkých postov o našej ceste.
Program sme si vyskladali z programov cestovných kancelárií, ale priznám sa, že v tom čase som o Srí Lanke nemala žiadne znalosti a informácie. Proste som okopírovala všetky známe veci a z nich sa potom program vyskladal.
Do Colomba sme prileteli skoro ráno. Rovno z letiska sme vyrazili na našu prvú zastávku - sloní sirotinec Pinnawala. Je to asi najkontroverznejšie miesto na Srí Lanke, niektorí sú nadšení, iní ho zatracujú. Jeho účelom by malo byť postarať sa o slonie siroty. Priznám sa, nevidím do problematiky, neviem do akej miery je možné slonie siroty adaptovať do prírody respektíve či by ich prijali iní sloní jedinci v safari parkoch. V každom prípade sirotinec na nás veľmi nezapôsobil. Bolo to ako horšie ZOO, slony mali na sebe reťaze a z kŕmenia bola dosť otrasná turistická atrakcia. ľudia si zaplatia niečo extra len aby mohli tie ubohé mláďatká nakŕmiť z fľaše. celé sa to odohráva v hnusnej vybetónovanej aréne s kopou ľudí a tú fľašu mlieka stiahne slon asi za 5 sekúnd. Možno je to potrebné kvôli financiám, ale je isté, že slony z tohto sirotinca sú na ľudí zvyknutí viac ako by bolo žiadúce a v žiadnom prípade sa nedá hovoriť o prírodných podmienkach.
Lepší dojem na mne zanechalo hromadné kúpanie slonov v rieke, ale z veľkej časti za to môže prostredie - rieka, palmy a stádo slonov, vyzerá to nádherne, to sa musí uznať. Ale slony stále majú okolo seba opatrovateľov, ktorí ich aj násilím tlačia aby si ľahli do vody a nechali sa umývať. A zase za pár rupií si môžte slona umyť aj vy. Suma sumárum - túto atrakciu môžte s kľudným svedomím vynechať, ale pokiaľ túžite vidieť väčšie množstvo slonov pokope a zblízka, neviem, či sa vám to inde na Srí Lanke podarí.
