The elephant is half-cocked

We woke up at 5:30am this morning and had tea before trekking up a nearby mountain. The path was incredibly steep and I’m amazed no one was injured. The view from the top was absolutely worth it though.

We came back for breakfast at around 8:30am. They had toast and omelets in addition to the Indian breakfast, which was wonderful because my stomach still isn’t settled from my last bout with Delhi Belly.

Then it was off to ride elephants. It’s easy to forget how big they are until you get on top of one and see how high up you are. The loading dock was on roof level so we had to climb a flight of stairs to get on.

Elephants move really slowly most of the time since they’re usually grazing so the driver had to keep kicking at the poor guy’s ears and whacking his head with a bamboo stick to keep him moving. Apparently, though, carrying a person for them takes about as much effort as carrying a sandwich does for us.

Ordinarily they’re used to transport lumber and once they’re trained they will do it all on their own totally unsupervised. We saw one carrying a huge log across the street. They’ve been doing it for like thousands of years.

While we were there I noticed a big group of people singing and dancing. Apparently they were street performers practicing a play that will be aired on national TV in a few days. It’s a government sponsored infomercial sort of thing about women’s rights, avoiding domestic violence, and how to use the Freedom of Information Act to combat local corruption. It’s all done through song because that’s how you get locals to pay attention.