the elephant count continued...

we've seen more elephants! on the bus from ooty we passed through a number of national parks, part of the western ghats biosphere reserve.

number 5: huge. walking through a village, with BIG tusks. most of the elephants around that we've seen have had their tusks trimmed really short. when we were driving through the parks, there were big signs along the road that said "elephant area: no stopping along road. do not honk horn. dangerous." don't startle the elephants!

number 6: behind a tree. you have to ask duff on this one, i didn't see it. but i believe that it was there, although how does an elephant hide behind a tree? duff now says it was more like a big bush.

number 7: being led down the road. with a chain around his foot. i am amazed that elephants can so calmly walk in indian traffic, which is just as nuts as chinese traffic. duff and i just finished reading 'the glass palace' by amitav gosh, and the author mentions how easy it is for elephants to get spooked and stampede. huh.

number 8: we rode it! duff and i went to the beautiful palace in mysore (much more on this later) and there were elephants and camels to ride. we did the tourist thing, and happily rode an elephant. it was so much fun! more on this later too. we have a bus to hospet in an hour, and like always, i am just trying to check in a bit before we move on. oh, and my goal in 2006 is to ride elephants, camels and horses, hopefully all in asia.

number 9: the buddy of the elephant we made friends with. also available for riding.

in the national parks we also saw a number of monkeys, a few different kinds, and 3 male peacocks (none with tailfeathers spread, though). oh, and lots of spotted deer. and i saw a wild boar and a big monkey in some kind of altercation. they fought, and then they backed away from each other. i have no idea what happened, but i prefer to think the monkey fell out of the tree and landed on the boar (i have seen a monkey fall out of a tree, in malaysia), or perhaps the boar had food, maybe an apple, and the monkey wanted to steal it.

and now it is time to go get the bus. katie and lindsey, the train? better? please teach us! the trains we have had are awful. with the busses, we are so close to everything, and the people are so nice! and i love to bounce along in the back. tonight we have a bus to hospet. in china, the slepper busses have beds, we'll see about this one.