Trip to Kerala: Kodanad Elephant Training Center

I read about an elephant training center on a great traveler Web site called IndiaMike.com. Other travelers had mentioned that you could go at 8 a.m. every morning and see the trainers bathe elephants in the river. I am so glad we did this because it was was of the highlights of our trip.

In the U.S., you would never get the chance to experience these animals so up close without fences, rules and for sure a paid ticket! This was not an organized tour or anything, it was just part of the elephants' care that we were able to witness just because we happened to be there. There was one other couple and a family there with us, but that was it so it made it really exciting to be a part of this activity.

The elephant trainers didn't speak any English, so they couldn't talk to us about what they were doing or why they were doing it, but it was awesome just to watch. One elephant got a thorough bath that lasted over an hour. The others just got a dip in the river. We got to see two adult elephants and three adorable babies.

One of the babies had extra chains on his feet and through the apparently universal sign of "crazy" (rotating your pointer finger in a circle on the side of your head) we figured out that he was the wild child. Poor kid!