I just came back from a fantastic elephant ride near a village called SAREE, 70 km from Banda Aceh. I went along my house mate to see the elephants and enjoy a ride.
There were around 6 elephants, which are tied to the trees by Iron chains covered by water pipes. The age of each elephant is between 20- 30 years. There was also a baby elephant of 3 years. There were some 38 elephants in that forest area, but these 6 elephants are Domesticated.
We asked if we can have a ride and the care taker wanted USD 30 for a one hour ride into the forest. We negotiated a 15 min ride for USD 10 and we had to manually climb on the elephant on its bare back. The elephant graciously sits on the ground, so that we can easily climb.
We both along with the care taker climbed the elephant. Wow, the elephant now carrying more than 200 KG of weight. After few minutes, our bums became numb, and we had to ask the care taker to cut short the trip to take us back.
There are three species of elephants- The African Bush Elephant, The African Forest elephant and the Indian Elephant. These elephants we saw are one of the four subspecies of the 'Indian Elephant' variety called 'The Sumatran sub species'. They are very small, and are also called Pocket variety, with a height of around 2.5 meters, but with big tusks.
Any way, Its Fun to do something on the week ends!!
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