Elephants!

Today I laid by a pool with palm trees swaying overhead, stood in the Arabian Sea, drove a left handed stick shift on the wrong side of the rode, and RODE AN ELEPHANT!  Talk about an eventful day… 

On the beach of the Arabian Sea

It all started with an all I could eat buffet at 10am.  I had a made-to-order omelet, fresh pineapple and mango, and a large glass of squeezed guava fruit juice.  After changing into my swim suit I basked in the hot Indian sun and swam in the pool.  It was nice to relax away from the noise of Mumbai.  We were lucky it didn’t rain today because there was an 80% chance.  Afterwards we walked down to the beach to watch the Arabian Ocean’s waves break and recede.  The beach was pretty dirty however and trash bobbed up in down in the frothy water.

Because the locals love taking pictures with Westerners,
they were excited when I asked them if I could take a picture
with them.  This was taken at one of the Hindu mosques near Goa.

After the Ocean we wanted to rent a car and drive to a spice plantation with elephants and also see some of the local temples.  Because no one else felt comfortable driving a left-handed stick shift on the opposite side of the road though India’s crazy traffic, I was named the designated driver.  It took me some time learning how to shift with my left hand and to understand how much room I had on my passenger side.  I dropped the outside tires off the road a couple times before I got the hang of it, but I was still driving with more control than many of the locals.  There is no such thing as a no passing zone in India, so the cars would swerve in and out of traffic.  Passing a car as another car zipped by going the opposite direction down the narrow road seemed pretty normal by the end of the drive.  While it was scary to think how close the passing vehicles really were as we crossed, we never ended up getting in an accident.  I enjoyed driving like James Bond because there was little risk of getting pulled over by a traffic cop (because there were few if any).  It wasn’t like I was going 60mph though.  I don’t want to build it up too much.  At max it was like 50mph, but there were times we were within inches from other motorcycles and cars.

A black elephant posing after I tamed the wild beast. :)

The last stop on our drive was the spice plantation/elephants.  We followed a small single lane paved/dirt road about 5 miles off the highway into the jungle.  When we arrived at the plantation it was closed, but there was still an elephant chained to a tree under a big blue tarp.  It was said to see the heavy chains wrapped around the elephant’s ankles.  Even though I felt bad for the elephant, I still wanted to ride it really bad.  How often do you get to ride an elephant in India!?  It cost 600 rupees ($12).   After I paid the man he led me over to a stone staircase where the elephant would walk up to and I could hop on.  The elephant trainer was also on the elephant and I sat behind him.  It was interesting to see the elephant’s gray, tough skin and the long wiry hairs that covered his body.  The elephant’s back was pretty boney too, so my butt was already sore halfway through the ride.  I couldn’t imagine riding an elephant a long distance like a horse.  Halfway through the walk it posed with its trunk curled so the girls could take its picture.  Pretty neat!