Dubare Elephant Training Camp (Road trip to Coorg - Part 3)

"When an elephant shakes its butt, don't always assume it is shitting!" Click this link to go directly to the interesting part of the story!
6:30 a.m. Sunday morning. We started the day early by driving through Nisargadhama enroute Dubare Elephant Training Camp.Dubare was the highlight of our trip and we were very excited about being close to the elephants. Dubare is about 10 Kms from Kushalnagar. If you are leaving early, then the drive can be heavenly - cool fresh air along the banks of Cauvery and the route is lined with coffee estates. Every estate has a small house in the center and is covered by garden all around. Typically caretakers of the estates live in these houses. We were imagining what it would be like to stay in such surroundings 1 month every year. Reached Dubare around 7:00 a.m. The last 2 Kms to Dubare can take only 1 vehicle in 1 direction. The lack of a proper road makes driving dangerous. Misinformed about the timings we were quite early. The training camp begins only at 8:45 .am.


We walked across the river to reach the other bank and waited for the elephants to get dressed and come :). We did this 4 times ..i know you are wondering "what were we thinking?". Well Pravin and Vivek were cursing me as we didn't have breakfast in the morning, so we went again to the other side to have breakfast and be back in time. This training camp began 2 years back. It is a group of 13 elephants that visitors can interact with in such close quarters for about 2 hours. In the meantime, we saw the place were food is prepared for them every evening. I believe they like their food only if it is packaged into balls. One of the pictures shows a person lining those ragi and jaggery balls (their food). We strolled around the forest and spotted a lone elephant - a single tusker that had grazed away from its group. We took a few pictures standing behind it while it peed. Finally THEIR HIGHNESS made their appearance at 8:45 a.m. and went straight into the water. We bathed the elephants and later fed them. My god..How much they ate. But they have a very slimy saliva. One of the pictures shows a mother elephant and standing beside it is its baby. The baby is 9 months old and the mother is very protective of its baby.


The gentleman in this picture is a vet with 17 years in the company of animals. He has been associated with this elephant training camp since it began in 2003. The elephants follow his instructions to the dot and he absolutely loves them too. He wore a cargo and his pockets were filled with elephant feed. As he educated us about the pachyderm, he fed the elephant standing by his side. For some strange reason (probably because of the animal feed in his pockets), this vet reminds me the description of the vet in Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-up bird chronicle".
The vet's daughter recollects years later how her father smelled like the animals when he returned home from the zoo every evening. Though he was using it as a specimen, he made sure "she" didn't feel so and pampered her all through the session..Occasionally patting on her body and running his hands on her trunk. If you have a voracious appetite for statistics, then read along. He made a special request to each one of us in the group to spread the message by publishing wherever we could that elephants are an endangered species and they should not be poached but protected. Here are some facts I can recollect that the vet told us about this huge mammal ....

1. They have been in existence for millions of years now. References to them have been found in Vedas, Arthashastra, Ramayana and in the most recent times as

war elephants in battles.
2. Primarily 2 kinds are alive today - Asian and African. Physically there are stark differences between the 2. the African species has larger ears. The

Asian species has a more pronounced trunk and back.
3. About 50,000 muscles on its trunk
4. Vegetarian mammals and they eat more than 170 Kgs of food everyday. Can't digest protein and most of it goes as waste. This serves as fodder!
5. The average age of an elephant is anywhere between 75-90 years. The oldest one in the Dubare group is 82 years.
6. The gestation period of an elephant is 20 months.
7. Among the Asian elephants, only males have tusks. But among the Africa elephants, both males and females have tusks.
8. There are about 4000 elephants in India now. They were declared an endangered species in 1989.
9. When male elephants mature, they have an urge to have s* and can go insane. If 2 such male elephants meet head on in a fight, one of them is sure to die. This is primarily the reason why we hear some elephants in temples going mad and running haywire killing people in the months of Nov - Jan.
10. Bad news for males - The female is the head of the elephant family. The female guides the entire group when a natural calamity strikes. It is believed that when the Tsunami struck not a single elephant was around. They had migrated to higher altitude land.
11. They can sense smells and hear sounds as far as 6 Kms away. Amongst themselves they communicate in decibels beyond our hearing range.
12. The tusk of an elephant grows until the last day of its life. However, the growth rate reduces after 45 years.
13. They consume about 100 liters of water everyday.
14. Has an eyesight of only 80 deg so never ever go behind an elephant. It might just throw you 40 feet away with its trunk like a football. And you wouldn't have any bones left to count.
15. Watch when an elephant walks - the steps made by the first leg always match those by the back legs.



Elephant Ride

After that informative session from the vet, we were called in the order we checked in for the ride. For a while we believed that we would get to ride atop our friend - the lone one with a single tusk. But as luck would have it, we rode on top of the huge one - the double tusker that ate a lot of food just 15 mins back. 6 of us sat on top of it. And it started. There was just one more elephant in front of us. The first 10 steps were very exciting. We were thrilled until I felt a sudden tremor. Memories of the Kraken ride (roller coaster) at Sea World came flashing back to me. And I thought that was not so bad as this one. I was relieved when the mahout said the elephant is shaking its butt because it wants to pee and poop! What a time I thought! Relieved of the burden, it took a few steps ahead and then we were within arms reach of the other elephant. This is when hell broke loose. Seriously I didn't think I was going to get back alive from there. I thought our guy (obviously the elephant) doesn't like us much and is going to shake me down and stamp his feet. To make matters worse, the girl sitting beside me started screaming in a shrill voice that drove the elephant mad. It shook itself violently and instead of walking straight started walking sideways. The mahout ( a young boy of 17) couldn't control it. The elephant group ahead of us stopped. Amidst this drama, there was a 3rd elephant group behind us. Thankfully, the mahout of the group was a veteran. He sensed what was happening. It turned out that our elephant was a male and the one leading us was a female. And our guy wanted to lead and not follow the female. Very funny! So the female elephant stepped aside and our guy marched right ahead and he was all happy after that! I was so happy to alight from the ride and swore never again to go on one (and definitely not a male one).
Ummm..on second thoughts I probably exaggerated just a lil bit. It is a wonderful experience that you must do once in a lifetime. so try it out. But don't you blame me if it shakes its butt.