DAY TWO: Bali, continued

When we arrived yesterday, I noticed the hotel's beach faced due east. With that in mind, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 to be sure I caught the sunrise. I made it to the beach with about twenty minutes to spare, but better that than being late. After looking at all the pictures I took, I can't decide which I like better: sunrise or sunset.

Zoe, Rachel, and I had made plans for the day, but Mutia had an old friend from middle school that she wanted to meet up with, so she opted to pass on what we were doing. I had breakfast with her, though, since she was the only other one of us awake so early. On the way to breakfast, I met an awesome snail.

We (Mutia and I, not the snail and I) tried the breakfast buffet, which was held in a restaurant under a thatch-roofed hut about as huge as the lobby. The food included fried rice, noodles, soup, muffins, croissants, cereal, and fresh fruit. There was even a line for getting your own omelette. It all faintly reminded me of breakfast at Snelling. Under Mutia's supervision, I tried two new fruits: salak and rambutan. As you can tell by the pictures, salak has a scaly, pockmarked peel, and the fruit inside breaks into three lobes that look and feel like garlic. Each lobe has a big seed inside. The fruit has the consistency of an apple, and though not as sweet, it's still tasty. Rambutan is scary-looking, somewhere between hairy and spiky. The fruit inside was sweet and a little tart, and the texture reminded me a little of a pear. All in all, the taste wasn't nearly as exciting as the appearance.

I had so much fun with breakfast that I was a little late meeting our driver in the lobby. That's okay, because Zoe and Rachel were a little late too. Our driver had another group to pick up at a nearby hotel. It was a family of Japanese tourists, and they were very talkative--even in English. Once they caught wind that we're English teachers in Japan, they got even more excited. After about ten minutes, though, we reached our limit with Japanese as they reached theirs with English, so we all reverted back to talking to our own groups. The drive was about an hour from the hotel, and took us through little villages, rice paddies, and jungle.

Did I forget to mention where we were going? We went to ride elephants. There's an elephant preserve in Bali. They act as a sort of rehabilitation center, helping elephants that are rescued from Sumatra. They also offer rides on the elephants to help fund their efforts. Their website is here.

As soon as we got out of the van, we saw a big truck full of, well, poo. Pachyderm manure apparently makes for amazing fertilizer, since the animals each go through about 450 pounds of food a day.

Once we got into the park, though, the first thing we saw was a large artificial pond with about ten elephants just... being elephants. These are Asian elephants, which look a bit different from African ones. The main difference is the ear size: African elephants' ears are much larger than Asian elephants'. Tusks on African elephants are also longer than on Asian ones, and can be found on males and females, while with Asian elephants they're only found on males.

There was a small fence where most of those ten were gathered, and there were tourists there feeding them. As soon as we got through the gate, there was no guide--we were free to walk around as we wanted to--so we sort of gawked at the elephants until one of the workers pointed us toward a stairway leading to a platform. We walked up the stairs and saw elephants loping up to the platform. Each of these had a blanket draped over its back, and on the blanket was a sturdy wooden bench. A person was riding on the elephant's shoulders, right up behind the ears.

Rachel got on one by herself, and Zoe and I took the next one. The guy riding our elephant spoke English very well, and introduced himself as Made (pronounced mah-DAY). We started our tour of the park. The elephant we were riding was a 28-year-old female named Olin. Made told us that all of the elephants at the park are from Sumatra. Most of them are rescued from areas where their habitat is being destroyed, while others are children of those rescued. Olin, for instance, has a three-year-old baby in Sumatra.

We first rode past the interior of the park, where the elephants' living area is located. There are a lot of paved circles, with chains anchored in the middle. This is where the elephants are kept and, if I heard correctly, where they sleep as well. I noticed there aren't any trees in the compound, presumably because they'd be knocked down easily. We noticed one male chained off on his own, with only one tusk. Made explained that he has an infection that took his other tusk.

We headed out into the jungle. As we rode along, Olin would stop every few minutes to probe around for a snack. She would reach out with her trunk, sniff around, and (if she liked something) would pick it up and eat it. She stopped just long enough each time to pick it up and go. Occasionally she'd reach for a shrub or something planted as a barrier, and Made would gently scold her. We passed by a small farm, with livestock like pigs and chickens rooting around. Made pointed out some fruit on a nearby tree: durian, which has an awful smell, yet which is a very popular fruit in southeast Asia.

We also noticed how Made was communicating with Olin. He explained that for some commands, such as rearing back to strike a pose, he can tug on her ear. They also respond to verbal commands: Olin would trumpet, spray water, or raise a leg (to allow Made to climb onto her), depending on what he said to her. He explained that each trainer starts working with an elephant when the elephant is a few years old. The trainer will work with that elephant and no other for the rest of its life. No other elephant will listen to that trainer, and no other trainer can command that elephant. He even told us that when one of them--Olin or Made--is sick and can't work, neither of them can work for the day.

After about twenty minutes of riding through the jungle, we came back into the park. Our two elephants caught up to a chain of about six or seven others, each one carrying one or two visitors. We reached a watering hole, where all the elephants stopped to drink and pee. From there, we headed along into the main pool, which we saw as we entered the park. Here, visitors could give park workers their cameras so they could have their pictures taken from outside the pool. After this, we wound our way back to the platform where we started, and dismounted.

We tipped Made, thanked him again, and headed to the feeding area. A large barrel was full of broken pieces of palm tree, and everyone was free to take from it and feed the elephants. The elephants weren't chained or restrained at all: the fence kept them from getting to the barrel and making a buffet for themselves, and their trainers were nearby to keep them from misbehaving, but we were free to walk up to, pet, and feed the elephants. It's fascinating how dexterous they are with their trunks: they'd politely wait for about five seconds to let us hand them the palm, but after that, they'd start reaching out and trying to take it from our hands. Their eyes are simply beautiful. I was very gentle when I tried petting one on the snout, but one of the trainers grinned and told me I could do it harder, as he demonstrated.

I noticed a much smaller elephant in the group, and found out he's a five-year-old rookie. He was already wearing a seat, but he wasn't giving rides. He had a trainer who was trying to teach him the basics, which was obviously a struggle. Still, none of the elephants truly misbehaved: some would start playing with each other, but they never did anything untoward to us.

There was an announcement about an elephant show starting soon, so we gathered in a small arena. There were about sixty tourists in all, speaking all kinds of different languages. (I heard Spanish, German, and what I think was Russian, and those are just the ones I could recognize.) The announcer for the show spoke beautiful English with an awesome Australian accent. She gave a basic rundown of the park, reviewing things I'd already learned from Made, and then introduced some of the elephants.

The first three walked out in formation and climbed up a balance beam, holding the tail of the elephant in front of them and striking a pose. Next, an elephant picked up its trainer in its trunk, and held him for a minute or two. After that, one came out and was given a basketball. She grabbed it, trotted up to the net, and slam-dunked it. (Nobody called her for travelling--just like in the NBA!) The next one had a soccer ball placed about ten feet from a goal. He trotted up and kicked it, missing it the first time, but he got it on the second try. The last elephant came out and was given a paintbrush and canvas. She dipped the brush in the paint, and made some strokes on the paper. The announcer mentioned later on that we could find the elephants' paintings in the gift shop.

After the show, we milled around the park a bit, free to feed the elephants or look around. We saw an awesome lizard and a few huge flies before heading in for lunch. The meal was included in the price of the ticket, and consisted of an amazing buffet. They had rice, noodles, tofu, chicken, fish, spaghetti, salad, and bread, as well as pudding, shortcake, and sliced bananas with grated cheese sprinkled on top. It was all-you-can-eat, which is something I hadn't seen since December. The TVs in the cafeteria were playing a DVD of a special the Discovery Channel did about the park. We chilled out, talked, and watched the DVD while we ate.

We spent a little time in the gift shop, verifying that there are indeed samples of the elephants' paintings for sale. I couldn't quite justify $50 for it, though, especially when that was easily the most expensive item I'd seen thus far in Indonesia.

We hopped in the van to take us back to the hotel. On the way back, we noticed the local villagers had set out thatch mats and were pouring rice onto them. A lot of these mats were resting on the road, forcing vehicles to go around them. We asked the driver about it, and he explained (in unexpectedly good English) that they were drying the rice for storage.

We got back at about 2. That's right--everything I just mentioned happened before 2 p.m.