Roslyn Motter is a children's author and fabulous Wise Woman. To read our interview with Roslyn click here.
Roslyn is now off on an adventure of a lifetime and she is going to keep us posted as she tries something completely different to improve her health. We are thrilled to bring you her 'Prelude to the Adventure' and because she is an absolute hoot her story is bound to be enthralling.
Settle back and join her as she begins the preparations for her journey.....
The year 2009 was a particularly stressful year for me.
I am an author and in that year I released my seventh book;
was nominated for an award for my first book;
had to promote all the books by visiting numerous bookshops for signings and also visit over one hundred schools in four states of Australia;
cold called at least one thousand Australian schools;
personally packed and posted over one thousand sets of books to schools;
and drove tens of thousands of kilometres within four states.
Suffice to say that I was not particularly surprised when a blood pressure test showed that my blood pressure had increased alarmingly and the top line was over 150. Of greater concern to me was the fact that in every subsequent follow up, my blood pressure was substantially different. Sometimes the top line was higher, sometimes remarkably lower. When the top line was lower however, the bottom line was dangerously higher.
Since menopause my thyroid has also become under-active.
Furthermore, over the past few years my cholesterol level has been what is considered to be dangerously high at 9.2 and despite my best efforts to lower it, using herbs and trying to reduce my fat intake, it stayed at exactly that level.
I had hitherto avoided the doctor for fear of being forced to take medication, but I finally relented in October after once again hearing how I was on the verge of certain death. I gave in and took Crestor tablets and miracle of miracles, after six weeks my cholesterol had plunged to about 4.
The doctor was thrilled but I was extremely concerned. How could this be? Although it sounded like a magical cure, my better judgement told me that somehow this was not a good thing.
I have always had a problem with my weight and my addiction to sweet things does not help.
What to do?
Somewhere along the line I heard about Ayurvedic medicine (traditional Indian medicine). Recently a friend told me that her father who was suffering from a knee problem, had stayed in an Ayurvedic clinic in Kerala, India and after one week had been cured.
My curiosity was piqued. I did a bit of research on the internet and emailed a few clinics that had websites. The quotes that I received were to my mind quite outrageous. They were all quoting figures of up to $US4000 for just two weeks of treatment! I certainly didn’t want to pay this as I knew it wouldn’t cost anything like that to accommodate and treat me.
Then a friend suggested that I approach a travel agency in India that she had previously dealt with. I did, and was most impressed with the quote they gave me. For two weeks at the clinic; a further week with my own personal driver touring Kerala (including a day on a houseboat); and a week in Goa, the total cost including internal airfares was below $Aus4000. This was the cost if I shared a room so I decided to go with my mother.
My mother suffers with fluid in her legs so she was interested to see if the clinic could do anything for her.
To be truthful, I have always had a great fear of India. Despite hearing from some that it is the most wonderful country in the world, documentaries depicting beggars and homeless people have made me feel otherwise.
Should I be vaccinated? Can I trust the food? What about the water?
I decided not to be vaccinated but when I told the doctor I was going to India she immediately raced out of the surgery only to return with two needles which she jabbed into each arm.
Well that settled the matter, but I wasn’t going back for more. She had given me vaccination for hepatitis, polio, tetanus and typhoid. I thought that was enough!
As for malaria, she suggested taking a pill but my reading on the subject indicated that the body finds it very difficult to process these pills and a friend who had previously taken them told me they made her quite sick. I decided that I might take insect repellent instead – especially for my day and night on the waters of Kerala.
I have decided to cease taking my medication a few days prior to leaving for India as I don’t think that I can seriously take their treatment and Western medication at the same time. Also, my thyroid medication has to be refrigerated and I really can’t bear to work out the logistics of that.
We have all heard that the water in India is dodgy and I was further alarmed by stories of how the locals refill bottles of water to sell.
My anxiety sent me on a search for a water purification device. A camping goods store sold me a device (Steripen) which looks like a fat pen and which when plunged into water activates an ultraviolet light. This apparently kills all waterborne microbes. However, after I had spent over $260 on the device, my dentist scoffed and told me it couldn’t possibly work. Well, we’ll see.
I am now ready for travel. I have my visa, my Steripen, toilet paper (Indians don’t use toilet paper - they use water), my insect repellent, my travel insurance and a Punjabi suit (traditional lightweight pants and top).
I will report back on what transpires during the course of my Ayurvedic treatment and on my tour of Kerala and Goa.
love Roslyn
Click here for more about Kerala
We know we can hardly wait for the next instalment......
The holiday hasn’t even begun and I’ve had a drama.
Last night I received an email from Faith, at the travel agency in India.
She advised me that my connection between Mumbai and Kerala had been brought forward by an hour, so instead of having three hours between my international flight and the connection, I now had only two hours.
Apparently, this sort of thing happens all the time in India....
Flights are cancelled, delayed and brought forward all on a whim. Changes were also made to the next two internal flights I was making in India. However, this was the one that had the potential to give me a nervous breakdown.
I was travelling to India to recuperate and already I was having a serious blood pressure moment!
I had a total freak out. Imagine getting off the plane and racing across to the luggage carousel, then trying to charge through customs and then flying around looking for the shuttle to the national airport - and all in the heat of INDIA and all in two hours!
And dragging along my dear old mum to boot!!!
I have fond memories of very long queues at Sydney Airport and happy hours hanging around carousels there. I'm absolutely positive that everything takes longer in India anyway.
Furthermore, I couldn’t be sure that my Singapore Airlines flight would even arrive on time.
However, Faith was wonderful. She rang the airline (the ticket was a non-refundable ticket) and got half the money back for me and booked me on a different airline about 4 hours later.
Wasn't that a relief?
I had visions of spending the night on the streets of Mumbai while I waited for the next plane to leave!!!
I wonder wait to see what will be thrown at me next.
love Roslyn
Reporting in.
I have lots to tell you already, especially about my treatment.
(will let you know in detail in my 'report' at the end of my stay)
Had a 2 hour massage today and have to have one every day.
I'm just being bitten by a million mosquitoes in this internet cafe and I
can only hope they don't have malaria!
We have a very nice suite in this place. It has a balcony, lounge, huge bedroom
and bathroom and cable tv. Very nice!
Love Roslyn
Just checking in and to tell you that everything is going along smoothly.
Tomorrow we see a palm reader of hands - as opposed to the palm leaf reader!!!
I have so much to write about, including my account of the week long ceremony at the Hindu temple next door in celebrationof the goddess Kali who saved Kovalum beach from the tsunami in 2004.
I've now lost 4 kilos in my first week of treatment and feel super.
My bp is still 120/80.
I will report more as it happens. The Ayverdic doctor has asked me to write an introduction for the hotel's website on Ayverdic medicine so I'd better go upstairs and study it so that I can write something worthy!
Love
Roslyn
The treatment is now over.
I lost 5 kilos in 2 weeks and I must say that that was quite a challenge as I started eating a bit too much of their very yummy food.
Feeling fit and fabulous
My bp has stayed at 120/80 and I no longer have my gingivitis which I had for 2 months prior to leaving. There are also many other positive benefits such as a pain which regularly strikes me in my left hip at about 5am has now disappeared. Also a horrid stretching pain inside my neck has disappeared as has a pain on the inside of my right foot between the big toe and the heel. All these pains have been with me for at least 2 years.
I feel much better than I have in ages.
Baby and Rani -plantation owners
Last night we stayed at a home in a rubber plantation and spice farm. I will write more fully about that later as the owner is a true environmentalist who is using organic farming methods and alternating his rubber trees with other plants as a true subsistance farmer does.
He says that although many farmers tend to maximize profit by planting only rubber trees, he likes to plant a variety of trees such as banana, jackfruit, betel nut and teak trees amongst the rubber trees as that way pests are minimized. They grow coffee and cocoa beans and every conceivable spice too. They use a lot for personal consumption but sell the vanilla, coffee, black pepper, jackfruit and the rubber. He supplements his income with house stay guests.
Today we are staying at Periyar which appears to be the hub of the spice industry in Kerala. Across the road from the hotel is a bamboo forest full of macaque monkeys and fruit bats. I looked over the wall into the forest and saw that it was absolutely covered with plastic bags and debris which was clogging the little river which runs through. This is the big problem with Kerala from what I can see.
Try moving rice or sand this way
There doesn't seem to be a very satisfactory system of waste disposal and the roadside can tend to have quite a few plastic water bottles and other flotsam and jettsam scattered everywhere.
Cheeky monkeys
Anyway, back to the hotel and the monkeys are having a super time jumping around the hotel grounds. I was told that yesterday one got through the window of one of the guests and stole her camera. The hotel staff had to chase it through the hotel grounds and into the next hotel where it dropped the camera from a tree. Luckily it landed on some grass!!!
I've already had 2 bad experiences with monkeys in a pet shop in Paris and on Phi Phi Island in Thailand where on both occasions monkeys stole my necklace and there was some drama so I'm going out neckless-less so to speak. Less is better when it comes to wearing jewellery around monkeys!!!
Houseboat bliss - truly
The day before yesterday I also spent an afternoon and the night on a houseboat on the water ways of Kerala. We had a wonderful night with a really super Kerala style cook and I can say my BP must surely still be very low after that experience.
As I promised, a full report will be on your desk on my return. I've filled quite a few dozen pages with full details of treatments and the pummelling we received.
Mumsy really knows how to relax
By the way, yesterday was my mum's 80th birthday and she received 3 cakes!!! One was given to her on the house boat, the next by the plantation owner (curiously named Baby!), and the last by our kind driver who is the dead set spitting image of Eddie Murphy.
It's Eddie Murphy - isn't it!
Except our driver is better looking! But possibly not as talented though he is an excellent driver which is no mean feat on Indian roads. I for one would freeze if I was behind the wheel.
Interestingly there are no female drivers and the women ride side saddle on bikes while their husbands drive. Apparently some die when their saris get caught in the wheels of the bikes! Reminds me of Isadora and her scarf!
Four on a bike - now that is scary!
The wages as you can guess are very low. A nurse in a hospital only earns 3000 rupees a month. There are currently 39 rupees to the Aust. dollar. Of course it's fallen because I'm on holidays!
Well I'll be in touch very soon.
Love
Roslyn
Well you almost lost your intrepid reporter in Periyar last week. Straight after filing my weekly update I walked out of the internet cafe and went for a sixer down the stairs. I closed my eyes and wondered where I would land and finally I found out when my head came to a sudden halt with a bang, on a rusty stand. Kerpow!
Street scene In Kerala
I gingerly felt the damage and I was sure I could feel my bony skull. In any case, torrents of blood were gushing out and soon I was sitting in a pool of blood on the steps of the cafe. A lot of people came running and for the life of me I couldn't figure out where I was staying. Then out of the mists my driver mysteriously rolls up in his car and takes charge like my knight in shining armour.
Well, of course it's Eddie Murphy!! to my aid
Off we go to the local hospital and suddenly I'm facing all my fears in one hit. A hospital in India? Yikes! Bleeding on the brain anywhere? especially India! Yikes!
Anyway, we roll up at the local hospital which was small and quite quaint. There were quite a few people standing in the (one) corridor but I was pushed through as my status of being a foreigner with a big head wound made me very important, especially since blood was trailing down their corridor.
I was told to lose my handbag and shoes and go into the surgery and panic, panic, a young man I'd seen in one of the shops I'd visited, who has now mysteriously surfaced at the hospital, grabs the bag off me and tells me he'll look after it. Red alert! I was quite prepared never to see my bag and credit cards again - but what to do? I obeyed, and swayed into the surgery where I was told to lie on the hospital treatment table.
I was pleased to see that the two attending nurses were wearing surgical gloves though! They put disinfectant on the wound and shaved around it and then the young doctor came in and had a look see. I was convinced that my wound was at least 6 cm deep but sadly it wasn't deep at all. But it was long - it was 8 stitches long so I felt important again! I was given a tetanus shot and the whole exciting operation only cost 600 rupees - a mere $15! And furthermore, the Indian agency which had organised the whole trip (Indian Panorama) picked up the bill without a murmur! I certainly didn't expect that kindness!
And my bag is waiting for me too! I'm staggered that so many preconceptions have been completely annihilated in one fell swoop! But this did put rather a dint on our travel plans as (just in case I'd shaken my delicate brain too much) I had to stay put for 24 hours and couldn't move ahead to our next destination the next day.
Actually, I didn't mind at all as this was a rather lovely location with wild monkeys which jumped around on the balcony of each hotel room. We were told not to feed the monkeys but when I popped my head out early in the morning and saw a delightful fellow sitting on a ledge I just had to give him my remaining 1 1/2 bananas. He was so pleased he clambered on the roof and peed over the side of the awning on my head. How sweet. So that might be why we're not to feed them.
Monkey Magic
However I was told a story. A monkey climbed through the window of an English girl's room and stole her camera. She raised the alert and the hotel staff chased the monkey through the grounds and into the next hotel. By then the monkey was already bored with it and luckily dropped it on the grass. Apparently the monkeys can open doors too.
The monkeys live over the road from the hotel behind a long wall that serves as a boundary to the wildlife reserve. There is a huge bamboo cluster growing right against the wall and the monkeys love to spin around in it, swinging from stalk to stalk. They love to sleep in it at night because it's nice and cool in the middle of the cluster.
Their daily routine is - wake at 6am and play around in the hotel grounds or in the bamboo, then at 8am go deep into the reserve searching for food and then return at 3pm for more afternoon fun and games on the hotel balconies and in the trees and bamboo. Sleep at about 7pm. They share their bamboo with huge fruit bats which also hang from the stalks at night.
I looked over the wall expecting to see a magnificent sight below and was horrified to see that the lovely little stream that flowed through it was completely choked up with rubbish. What a shame. Rubbish seems to be a major problem right throughout Kerala and later, Goa. Interestingly, no one accepts responsibility for it either. The locals all say that all the littering is done by Indians visiting from other states in India!
Anyway, I saw a most intriguing animal scurrying through the rubbish in the creek. I could have sworn it was an otter but it had lots of gray fur. I wish I'd had a better camera to photograph it. However, wild elephants live in the reserve and I believe tigers do too.
As for tigers, there is a huge promotional campaign in India which features big sign boards strategically placed on highways and also television commercials which say "1411 - this is the number of tigers left in India".
Well, it is good that they have noticed - however, the problem is that farm land is encroaching on the tigers' habitats and of course the tigers have diminished food resources.
There is a famous case in Goa at present where a villager is being tried for killing a tiger early last year. Apparently the tiger was eating livestock so it met an untimely end at the hand of villagers. However, I was told by a cynical observer that the forestry department cracks down hard on villagers but turns a blind eye to politicians who decide to do a spot of tiger hunting. I do hope the commercial does turn the situation around. But they will have to stop the destruction of the tigers' habitats.
They Keep Reminding us!
I must put in a good word for the incredible work ethic of the people of Kerala. Our driver, Biju (Eddie Murphy look alike) who seems to work every day while on assignment, and who only gets a break between jobs, sat in the car outside the hotel all day while I was indisposed because it was ' his duty'. I tried to get him to leave his car to take a cup of tea at least, but he refused to budge. And furthermore, he, and all the other drivers, often sleep in their cars at night! This is the only solution for them when they are in pricer resorts. Fortunately, sometimes the owners of guest houses find a room for the drivers which is very kind. I would have gladly let him sleep on the couch in our accommodations which were usually huge. We'd have a bedroom, lounge/dining room and bathroom and it wouldn't have worried me at all but I knew he'd say no.
Another young fellow of about 24, who I'd first spotted working in one of the shops, later turned up selling tickets at a night show and then he later told me he worked all night doing something else. I asked if he ever slept and he said 'only an hour or two'. He says that on the very small monthly salary of 1500 rupees (39rupees to the dollar), he has to have 2 more jobs to survive. In the monsoon season in June, July and August, when it rains every day, he works on spice plantations as do other people working in the tourist industry.
The big paying jobs are our favourite thing - call centre operators. They start on a minimum wage of 10,000 rupees a month and can earn terrific bonuses if only we don't hang up on them!!!
Kerala Folklore Theatre
I went to a most amusing show at Cochin on my last night there at the Kerala Folklore Theatre and Museum. This wooden building, which has been built in the traditional ancient Kerala style, is the brainchild of a man who has been collecting Kerala antiquities all his life. The treasures are now housed in his museum and what an interesting display it was. There were ancient and most peculiar musical instruments; scary masks for Kathakali dance shows; jewellery; wooden carvings which were so well carved I could have sworn they were stone sculptures; palm leaf manuscripts (I still have to tell you about my experience with the palm leaf reader) containing prophesies and medical texts; puppets; wooden and bronze utensils; mural paintings; oil lamps and spectacular costumes. It really was extremely interesting.
In fact, the museum had everything except water for sale. Just as I thought I'd pass out as it was the usual hot day - as luck would have it, some tourism people had attended a display there that afternoon and there were two young coconuts full of juice, left over. Saved!
We were then taken into the theatre where we were unfortunately for the theatre, two of five visitors. However, they've only just opened and I hope it becomes a hit as the show was a riot. The reclining rattan chairs were really comfortable and where normally I would become fidgety during such a show, I was really able to enjoy it.
It started with a display of traditional Kerala martial arts. Two men leapt around brandishing swords and shields and doing somersaults. Then two female dancers performed two quite different styles of dancing. They showed the eye movements and hand gestures that are so much a part of the Indian dance style and then danced around, stamping their feet to ring their bell anklets and wobbling their heads from side to side.
Then a Kathakali dancer sat on the stage to show the eye movements and hand and facial gestures that are the Kathakali's stock in trade. Their full green faces and painted clown mouths are most intimidating in appearance. They are the traditional Kerala dancers and are most commonly male although they dress in voluminous skirts with jewellery.
After this display our dancer performed a routine with the most unusual co-star. I thought he was made up to resemble a monkey - he certainly looked like one with a face painted black with yellow stripes and a sort of little cymbal thing on his nose - but I think he might have been supposed to be a bore (as in pig). The Kathakali dance routine is actually a whole story which the storyteller relates at the beginning of the show.
I've seen one of these shows before and they can go on and on, but fortunately this one was more succinct. The monkey-man was very encouraged by my obvious amusement and played up to the cameras (as it were) accordingly! He shrieked and made monkey faces (can't imagine how anyone could think he was a pig) and was generally a hoot. He had to shoot the green faced dancer with an arrow and then of course, after dying, the green faced one is resuscitated at the end. What a riot! A great time was had by all and after it was all over and
I peeked into their dressing room, the funny monkey-man who was now looking more like a real live man, waved enthusiastically.
I will report on Goa in my next communication and then relate the finer details of the Ayuvedic treatment and fortune tellers.
Bye from India!
Love
Roslyn
I'm in Goa at present and staying at a simply fabulous resort called Coconut Creek Resort. It's absolutely wonderful - little houses built around lovely gardens and a huge pool.
Mumsy and Roslyn meet the elephants
It is right next to a very nice beach with lovely clean white sand. That is quite something as elsewhere I've noticed that the sand is rather muddy and black in appearance. It also has a restaurant for cheap eats on the beach and a fairly delicious meal can be acquired for about $5 and a cocktail costs about 150 rupees which is about $4. In fact there are the same English couples coming to this resort every year. And why not?
The food is cheap and delicious, the weather is superb, there is cable TV in each room and you can get a beauty treatment or massage for about $10!
I was amused by the laid back attitude to dogs here. A restaurant has tables on the sand of the beach and a couple of well fed dogs congregate there every night. One dog plopped itself on the sand between two tables and promptly went to sleep. The waiters were not at all phased and in fact walked around the dog or stepped over it! Dog lovers everywhere would applaud.
However, on a more sinister doggie note, I was told by our Goan tour guide that a senior tour guide and his driver had in the very week before, both been bitten by a rabid dog. Vaccine had to be flown in from interstate and the timing of this is critical. It has to come in within a certain number of hours and in their case it was 2 hours late arriving. They were waiting to see if the vaccine wassuccessful because if it's not, he will have to be given a fatal injection (says the tour guide!) as he would become rabid himself and incurable. How ghastly! So I gave dogs a wide berth after that timely warning.
We went on a sunset cruise on the harbour of Cochin and this was absolutely a riot.
The boat was jam packed with tourists - mostly a lot of young men from the Middle East and India. Anyway, there was a resident DJ on board who was playing ear splitting music complilations. The program included a dance display by 4 Goan dancers who performed traditional folk dances based on the Portuguese style. After their performance the MC asked all the children on board to come up and dance on the stage. This was followed by all the couples dancing.
Then he asked the men to come up. There was an almighty yell and literally dozens of fellows stamped from all quarters onto the stage. Here they threw their arms in the air and all gyrated and pounded around the stage in the most amazing spectacle I have ever seen. This lasted for a good 20 mins and they weren't the least bit embarrassed about their performance.
The men get down and boogie
Can you imagine that happening in Australia outside a gay club? Not very likely! Yet I doubt these men were at all gay - only deliriously happy! Furthermore, I'd have to say they were simply dancing for the pleasure of dancing rather than doing a routine to attract the ladies on the boat.
By contrast, later, when the ladies were asked to come up on stage to dance, about 8 shy girls walked up and very self consciously moved from side to side. It was certainly an interesting cultural experience!
Whilst on the subject of men and women in India, did you know that most of them have arranged marriages still? Although I met lots of people who professed to be Christians, they too said they had arranged marriages.
All single people lived at home with their parents unless they were working a long distance away where the hotel for example, would arrange a room for them. Then the parents would advertise or ask around for someone of similar background to marry their son or daughter.
The Hindus get astrological charts drawn up by the priest at the temple. These charts compare the astrological transits of the two parties and the wedding would only take place if they were compatible. I believe the man gets a chance to meet a number of potential partners and can veto one he doesn't much care for. Still, the girl has to come up with a dowry which can make the whole business a bit expensive.
Afterwards they go to live with the husband's parents. There are a lot of elements here that I see causing quite a few potential problems but in actual fact all the people I spoke to were extremely happy with their spouses and went out of their way to spend time with them and make them happy.
I was also surprised to see that 90% of families in Kerala and Goa had 2 children - amazingly usually a boy and a girl. Don't know how they organised that. It was rare to see two boys or two girls in one family.
Unless you want to upgrade to a car, a small family is better!
Our driver glibbly said, "A small family is a happy family!" I got the impression he'd learned this from school. So rest assured that Indians aren't all producing families of 15 boys as I think they might have in the past.
Like everyone in the west, they realize that a family is an expensive proposition these days - especially when education comes into the equation. And Kerala and Goan people seem to be all very well educated. When anyone wrote a note for me in English, they wrote it beautifully and with no spelling mistakes. This, espite the fact that the language that Kerala people speak is Malayalum (hope I spelt this correctly). This is quite different from Hindi and sounds like a tongue rolling an 'r' continuously.
The written language apparently has about 56 characters and they are all twisted and circular. It looks very difficult to me! I was told that employment opportunities for graduates in Kerala and Goa are very limited and thus, 50% of the working population are working in the Middle East or in South Africa.
That sounds very easy except that the cost of the working visa to go to these lands is extremely expensive. I heard a figure like 100,000 rupees for the Middle East. And then a tour guide told me that he'd actually worked in the Middle East when he was much younger and he'd received nothing like the money he'd been promised and in fact was so badly treated by the locals working there, that he'd be frightened for his life.
He only escaped with his life because he went on a hunger strike and proved so problematical for them that they shipped him home.
How to carry an elephant!
Oops, forgot to mention the elephants in India.
If you are a person of means, but by no means king of the world, you might like to invest in an Indian elephant!
Roslyn meets Kosomin
In our travels we met Kosomin, the most famous elephant in India.
He cost a bomb and he has 3 mahoots (handlers) but he certainly earns his keep. He is hired out to various temples around the state of Kerala for religious celebrations and he earns 100,000 rupees a day.
We saw him at one temple, together with another 5 or so elephants who had also been hired and they all seemed to be having a great time, stripping leaves off coconut trees for their lunch and having long baths where they laid on the ground as the mahoots clambered over them, washing them with a hose and scrubbing them with coconut shells. On the orders of their mahoots they would move a leg into place or turn over so that another part could be accessed. Then up they jumped and lumbered off to the temple for a full make up and ceremonial costume fitting.
Look what is coming down the road!
No ceremony at a Hindu temple is complete without an elephant and they certainly draw in the crowds. Just like us, dozens of locals just stood staring as Kosomin undertook his ablutions.
I think we could have stayed glued to the spot watching forever as he lifted a well manicured foot and then another for a scrub between his toes. At reserves where they allow tourists to ride the elephants, the elephants live a somewhat similar life. They give bathing displays in a giant bathing area and they finish off their bath, not with a hose, but with a spectacular display of showering themselves from their own trunks.
Tourists can feed them bananas and little pumpkins which they make quick work of. The only thing which I found unfortunate and which I had read about, was that young elephants are tethered for the whole day to one spot for many years. This instils in them the thought that they have very narrow boundaries and hence they are easier to handle and not likely to wander off into the jungle like a wild elephant might.
Although they apparently go for a walk in the morning with their trainers, the rest of the day must be horrid for them being tethered to the one spot till they're five years old. I saw one little baby swaying back and forth on the spot and my heart went out to him.
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Poor little elephant learning the ropes!
Still, their lot might be much better than the working elephants that have to shift tonnes of timber on logging sites. Carrying around tourists and having baths for the camera sound pretty easy in comparison. On the other hand, they could also be free.
Elephant carrying his lunch
There is still some jungle left and wildlife reserves where families of elephants roam freely.
While we were staying at Moonah in the Highlands where the tea is grown in Kerala, a young waiter told me that he was nervous about going home that night as the previous night a wild elephant had been spotted on the very road where he rides home.
I couldn't imagine that it would find anything to eat in a tea plantation and he said that it would usually find a farmer's garden and rip up all the vegies. I then worried that farmers might take revenge but he assured me that all wild life is protected in India now and that it is against the law to harm a wild animal.
Certainly, signs along the road said, "Do not scare the wildlife". And there are heavy fines for hitting monkeys with your car and I must confess, that unlike Australia, where a drive in the countryside in any state is a horror trip due to the huge numbers of dead kangaroos, wombats and even koalas on the road, in India I never once saw a dead animal on the street.
I saw heaps of dogs just sitting or lying on the side of the road - which, given the volume of vehicles of all sorts from bikes to motor rickshaws right up to lorries, was the best possible move they could make.
I saw cows and water buffalos even, plodding along or tethered at the side of the road, and I particularly saw hundreds of goats wandering freely around most places, but they always managed to avoid being hit by a car. Very amazing!
I will tell you more on my return!
Love
Roslyn
