When I lived in Sri Lanka, (I went there on holiday and I loved it so much I stayed for 14 years) I went to Udawalewe National Park to see elephants in the wild. Udawalewe is famous for them.
I went with several people from the hotel where I lived for 2 years. Our “tour” included an open topped jeep and a driver.
We stopped close to a small herd of maybe 25 elephants. Several elephants came really close to our jeep. I’m not sure if I was nervous or scared with such large wild animals almost an arm’s length away. I heard a low deep grumble come from them. Not familiar with that sound, I worried it was them being upset with us but then our guide whispered they were communicating with each other.
Upon leaving the park, we stopped to let elephants cross the road. Two elephants stopped in the bushes along the side of the dirt road, the larger elephant (an auntie perhaps) draped its trunk on the little one’s body. I did get a picture of that and I love it so much that I have three prints of them hung around my house. They bring back the sweet memories of my time at Udawalewe.
Yala National Park was another magical place where many animals live; most famously leopards. I went with a Sri Lankan fellow, Dr. Ravindra Samarasinghe, a well-known leopard expert and conservationist. Ravi, 44, was a calm, kind man who had immense patience. Point in fact, Ravi spotted a leopard just by seeing its tail whip up from the dense, tall grass it was hiding in. Assured by Ravi that we would eventually see the leopard sit up, we waited in the jeep, our cameras resting on rice bags. We waited for 90 minutes, yes 90 minutes! My neck got a kink in it, my arm fell asleep, but finally the female leopard sat up and I was able to get the picture of that glorious cat.
The problem was, my stupid expensive camera had malfunctioned the day before. Fortunately I had brought a second camera, but my long lens didn’t fit onto it so Ravi lent me one of his lenses, which wasn’t as fast as mine but it still worked. Thanks to Ravi’s patience and knowledge, I got a close-up of the leopard looking at us!
I was able to get many wonderful photos before the malfunction; a wild water buffalo immersed in water with green duck-grass on its head, jackals, a tree full of grey hornbill birds, an adorable little green bee eater bird that followed us for quite a while.
At the hotel where I lived, I walked daily down to the beach (Indian Ocean) and small cove. I would swim and float on the gentle waves until I almost fell asleep. I ended up losing weight from all the walking and from eating healthy food. I tried to find chocolate in the nearby town but there was none to find. Chocolate M&Ms came about 10 years later!
The Sri Lankan people were special. I’ve been back in California for almost 9 years and I still have Sri Lanka friends who I communicate with regularly. One of the wildest things was, people thought that I, an American, was someone important. I tried to dissuade them, but they still believed I was important. Maybe it was because I related to them, whether they lived in a shack or a giant house. I had tea with a previous president, played checkers with the Minister of Buddhism (he suggested that I leave the mosquitoes alone, but I didn’t.). I broke bread with and photographed weddings of Muslims, Hindi, Tamils, Buddhists and Christians (I could write a book on those amazing experiences).
What’s a girl to do?…spread the word on how knowledge of different cultures makes us better citizens of our planet.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard welcomes comments and shares. To contact her email lucywgtd@gmail.com
