March 8, 2025

We had done a fair amount of research with You Tube about Sri Lanka, so we felt somewhat prepared for our 2.5 hour bus ride to the center of the island and the Millennial Elephant Foundation. Tod opened the curtains of our stateroom to reveal that we had docked at the industrial area of the port of Colombo, and we gazed out to dozens of cranes and a yellow brown haze. Huge, shiny high rises were far in the hazy distance. He stepped out on our balcony and made a horrible face and immediately came back in. The heat, humidity and the horrible smell followed him in. The smog must have been a mix of coal smoke, vehicle exhaust and who knows what else. It reminded me of LA in the 60’s (lol) only hotter and more humid. Soon after, we heard loud drumming and stepped out to see a local troop performing their cultural dance with beautiful, colorful native costumes by the gangway. Too bad we couldn’t linger and watch, but we had a bus to catch.

At 9:00AM we boarded another beautiful, air-conditioned bus and headed for our usual spots in the back. We had found that in addition to having great visibility and no rush to get off, the rear seats are about a foot elevated above the rest of the seats on the bus. Therefore, we could dangle our legs a bit between the seats in front of us, relieving our backs on long drives. Shortly before the bus was scheduled to depart a big, tall white-haired guy going about 280 pounds and I’m guessing in his late 70’s boarded with I assumed his wife and friend and came straight to the back where we were sitting, gave us a sour look, sighed and turned around. We really weren’t paying too much attention with our noses in our phones but soon the tour guide came back to us and said that this gentleman had a “bad knee” and needed us to move. We gaped at each other, and I thought to myself, oh geez – is this going to turn into a battle of the maladies? Tod was about to get up and I grabbed him and told the guide that yes, we’d be glad move. Remaining in the back seats I scooted over to the window on my right side and signaled to Tod to scoot to the one on his left side, and I said happily, “Sure, he can have the middle seat!”. The tour guide said OK and back came the big guy. He was not happy, grunted something to Tod (which he couldn’t understand) in an Aussie or NZ accent and plopped down in the center seat. Off we went on our Asian elephant adventure.

Getting out of the dock area was an experience in itself, due to the fact there was a huge amount construction going on. It’s not like they routed us to a decent road around the construction because I don’t think there was one. I signaled to Tod to put on his seatbelt, as we jolted and bounced about a mile until we made it to the flat asphalt.

One thing of note that I haven’t mentioned before is the Asian dog. At least that’s what I call them. We saw them in Malaysia, Thailand and now here in Sri Lanka. They wander around and are seemingly well fed and are always very slow moving, usually looking for a place to plop down for a snooze. The males have their, “well, you know”, and most of the females look like they have been nursing a litter of pups somewhere. They all look alike and seem to vary only in their coloring however the tan color is the most prevalent. I’d say they’re similar to a coyote in size and coat, yet they are not wild, clearly an eons old mix of domesticated dog. Anyway, the reason I brought this up is that they were wandering around the construction site seemingly oblivious to all the heavy equipment. They’d lay in the dirt and when a huge front-end loader would barrel toward them, they’d look up, yawn and slowly walk to another, safer place to drop down to continue their nap.

Back on a decent road, well kind of anyway, our guide, again in perfect English started to explain about Sri Lanka. Soon we would be on the “Kandy Road”, a major A1 Road on the island that led to the town of the same name. Kandy is one of the holiest sites in Buddhism and has a shrine with a tooth of Buddha (obviously rare). It has played a huge role in the politics of the country for centuries, in that who controls Kandy, controls the rest of the country.

He explained that the English had colonized the Island in Victorian times, and it used to be called Ceylon. I can remember that from 4th grade geography. The name got changed to Sri Lanka in the ‘70s long after the Brits left. Although we could see the remains of their influence with some signs in English, it didn’t seem to be as dominant as it was in Malaysia and Singapore. Top commodities grown on the island are tea, rice, rubber, coconuts, pineapples and cashews.

We barreled on for 2 ½ hours with our fearless driver who navigated the chaos that is the Kandy Road with ease. Tod was brave and looked more than I did. Having been in a head-on collision in my life, I tightened my seatbelt and spent the drive looking to my right out the window - I simply couldn’t bear looking straight ahead.

The highway was about as wide as a back country road in the US or as a so called “B” road in the UK and Europe. It had to accommodate: Big rig trucks, multiple types of delivery trucks, scooters, motorbikes, government buses, public buses, tour buses, tuk tuks (covered 3 wheeled vehicles used as cabs and called that because of the sound they make) personal vehicles, bicycles along with pedestrians of all shapes and sizes including moms with a kid on one hand and an umbrella in the other. Dozens of roadside vendors complicated matters narrowing the road even more. Tod described to me that in towns everyone appeared to follow the stop lights and street signs, yet on the open road the center dividing line seemed only like a suggestion. Lane direction appeared optional and everyone was all over the place. Passing he said was basically “at will” and if you wanted to pass someone, you just did it despite who or what was coming toward you. Yikes – I very happily spent the trip gazing at the sights to my right. I even spotted a little monkey climbing a telephone wire. I’m assuming it was a rhesus, but I haven’t researched it. I’ve kind of been off monkeys lately.

After our long drive that rivaled any thrill ride Universal Studios could dream up, we arrived at the Millenium Elephant Foundation in one piece. Deep in a jungle, it is privately sponsored and has 3 missions. First is to protect and harbor the Asian elephant from abuse, second is to educate people about the creatures and lastly is to produce paper products from their poop (no joke).

I’ll let my photos below tell basically the rest of the story, but it was a fabulous experience that we will not soon forget!

An equally exciting drive led us safely back to the ship by 5:00PM and we wondered, how can these days get any better??

Sea day tomorrow as we navigate to our next stop, Malé, capital of the Maldives, one of the most densely populated places on earth.