Video
We met Elephants in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰
· 21 min · Watch on YouTube
We met Elephants in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰
An hour and a half by Uber from Kandy to Pinnawala with Mac and Ali, to an elephant orphanage the hotel recommended specifically on the grounds that the animals are well treated.
The interesting part of the video is that he doesn’t come away sure. He picked the place on a recommendation, says on camera that these things are hard to verify and often covered up, finds the elephants chained, reads the sign saying the chains are a safety measure, and decides he has no reason to disbelieve it — while noting that when he did this in Thailand there were no chains at all. He ends where he starts: this looks like a good life, and ideally they would be wild.
Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. The video and description call it a sanctuary; the on-site signage Harry reads calls it an orphanage.
What it costs and how it runs
- 3,000 rupees a ticket — about $15, which he thinks is reasonable.
- About 1,000 rupees for a couple of bananas to feed them with.
- The bathing time is the thing to get right. They understood the river bathing to start at four; it finishes at four, and they arrive to find the herd already walking back.
- There are almost no instructions. No guidance on where to go, what to do, or how close you may get — he remarks on it twice and works it out by following everyone else.
- The visitors are mostly Sri Lankan, which he had not expected.
What they see
- The herd walking back from the river through the town, past the shops, which is free to watch and which he rates as good as the paid part.
- A pen where they eat, working through whole branches — he hadn’t realised they eat the wood as well as the leaves.
- A 36-year-old elephant he is allowed to hand a banana to, and a long admiring passage about the trunk and how much control they have over it.
- Babies, five minutes’ walk further on.
- A display of the traditional tools once used to handle them, which he handles carefully in commentary: this is how animals used to be treated, it is history, and pretending it didn’t happen is not the answer.
The sign he reads says the elephants are semi-wild and weigh up to 4.5 tons.
The stop opposite
A small café over the road, which supplies the video’s other numbers: three pineapple juices and a water for 1,150 rupees — about $6 — pressed from local fruit, and seven rabbits that the group ends up playing with. On the drive out they also stop for a local energy drink he compares to Red Bull and a packet of chocolate biscuits.
Key moments
[00:30]An hour and a half by Uber, and the assurance about the treatment.[04:39]Arrival, and why they chose this one.[05:53]Running to catch the herd coming back from the river.[06:57]The chains, first seen.[08:55]The bathing was 3–4, not from 4.[09:25]3,000 rupees a ticket.[10:58]The sign: semi-wild, 4.5 tons, chains for safety.[12:30]No instructions, and the comparison with Thailand.[13:02]Feeding a 36-year-old.[14:42]The old handling tools, and what he says about them.[15:13]His verdict: a good life, but ideally wild — and 1,000 rupees for the bananas.[20:21]1,150 rupees for three juices and a water.