Sri Lanka - Royal Botanic Gardens and elephant orphanage at Pinnawela

The history of The Royal Botanic Gardens in Peradeniya dates back to 1371 but in 1780 it became a royal garden. In 1810 Sir Joseph Banks had input into the garden. Today the garden displays Sri Lankan  plants as well as trees from around the world. We hugged a giant kauri from Australia!

 

Jack fruit

Bats

In the orchid house

The elephant orphanage in Pinnawela was established in 1975 with seven orphans. One elephant that had lost a leg from a land mine was rescued by the orphanage and later became the first elephant to give birth in captivity.

What a happy place this is. We arrived in time to see the elephants bathing in the river with their mahouts. They were having a great time, especially when they were showered with water.

Aldo was excited to see the elephants too.

Later the elephants walked through the street to return to the orphanage. One elephant thought my red camera looked like something nice to eat.

Back at the orphanage we saw the elephants enjoying their environment and one lucky one was the star who was hand fed fruit and photographed by the many people visiting.

Lastly we saw two baby elephants being bottle fed. You had to be fast to get a photo as it only took them six to eight gulps to empty the bottle.

We were all amused to see the shops selling Poo Paper. In a plan to raise money to help with medical care for the animals some clever person has come up with the idea of making paper from the elephant poo. As each elephant eats 50 kgs of greenery every day, they do produce rather a lot of poo! Let's hope the sales of Poo Paper really take off.