Pinnawala elephant orphanage, Sri Lanka
This a famous tourist destination in Sri Lanka, which was established in 1975. This place is located at Sabaragamuwa province. Pinnawala elephant orphanage emerged due to the past and prevailing situation of killing wild elephants for several motivations by farmers and treasure hunters. During the recent past, the tendency of killing wild elephants has increased rapidly. Farmers kill the elephants when the elephants enter to their paddy fields to find foods during the droughts periods due to absence of rain. Even though there are electric fences to prevent elephants from entering to the village area, these electric fences are not much effective in preventing the elephants. Besides that, most of the treasure hunters kill elephants to get ivory. Due the death of parent elephants baby elephants become orphans.
As a solution for this problem, Pinnawala elephant orphanage was established by Sri Lanka Wildlife Department to take care of these elephants. In this place, staff and the doctors provide the best care, health services, food and other necessary services to all the elephants.
This is an amazing place, where we can visit Asian wild elephants in a natural environment; you can see elephants are bathing and playing in the river with baby elephants, which was an amazing experience for me. Apart from that, you can visit how they feed elephants and what kind of foods they give to them. Normally, they offer them coconut leaves, fruits etc. In this place, you can see a bunch of elephants at once without taking any risk for your life. During your visit, you can have an opportunity to feed the elephants and enjoy the kindness of these animals. Taking photographs is not prohibited so, you can take photos of elephants as much as you want in this place.
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During my visit, I could walk very close to elephants, which gave me an incredible feeling about these animals. For the first time, I felt how innocent these elephants are, even though they look like so giant. The scenery of the whole elephant family with mamma elephant, papa elephant and the baby elephant, is lovely and a peaceful thing to see by your own eyes. I recommend you this place to visit, if you go to Sri Lanka.
In this place, they take care of orphaned elephants and conducts captive breeding. To visit this place, you should buy tickets, which cost around $ 16 for adults and $ 8 for children.
Even though you can get there by train or by bus, the most convenient way is using private transportation. My advice is to stop by the Pinnawala elephant orphanage, while you are travelling from Colombo to Kandy.
I have extracted a photograph from the internet to emphasis the magnificent nature of this place.
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What to see Colombo,
Colombo,
Sri Lanka
