How to Bathe an Elephant

Well, our vacation blogging wouldn't be complete without some photos from the Dubare Elephant preserve. This is billed as a forest home for retired elephants, where you can feed, bathe, and ride elephants who are living a life of leisure. In reality, the preserve seemed like a major revenue generator for the Karnataka Govt, and the vast majority of tourists didn't seem interested in feeding or bathing - just riding. So, the elephants have to walk around in circles all day with large groups of well-fed Indian families, which doesn't seem like much of a retirement. When we visited, however, we lucked out because we found a couple of mahouts (elephant handlers) on their way to bathe elephants which did not belong to the preserve. They were happy to have our help with the bath (along with a few extra rupees, of course). We all had fun getting muddy and wet. What we can tell you is that elephants have really thick, rough skin, they seem to enjoy their baths, and baby elephants are very playful and like to try and headbutt tourists....