Mar 4: Crazy India

We thought we'd seen everything - the cruise our grand finale.  Our driver asked us on the drive down if wanted to see a Hindu festival but we declined cos it was so hot and to be quite honest - all templed out.  But after he picks us up from the boat he again asks us, and we learn that the festival is in his own village, so we relent under his insistence and assurance that we will never have seen anything like this in our lives!

He wasn't wrong.  The villagers have a holiday for this festival.  He speaks very little English so couldn't explain what was going on.  In fact he just pointed us in the right direction, told us to take our shoes off, take as many photos as we like and not to pay anyone any money without his permission.  

What we saw was lots of people in colorful dress, much blowing of big curved bugles, beating of drums, clanging of cymbals, general milling around, and these 3 huge elephants, highly decorated and heavily chained.

Sooo sad for these animals.  We later learned that these elephants are worked intensively during the festival season.  These three will be chained up all day under a canopy in the heat, with a cacophony of noise around them.  Fireworks too, in fact one huge "banger" was let off while we were there.  Frightened the living daylights out of us!  We thought it was a bomb, or cannon, and in these days of terrorist alerts we thought the worst!

The poor elephants though, have to put up with this day after day.  Chained up all day with their only exercise being the three times they must walk around the shrine at the climax of the festival. They get very bad tempered and often run amok in the mayhem of festivals, killing people in their path.  This is why they are so heavily chained.

Now THIS has been the grand finale!

Tomorrow morning early we leave India.  So sad.  Our tour company is named Enchanting Travels.  Enchanting is one of many words encapsulating India, I've got a few others: crazy, surprising, shocking among them!