As Claire and I have been busy from the word go, jetlag never really got a chance to hit us. Day three and we were up for another early morning adventure. Destination: Pinnawala Elephant Sanctuary. Situated some 20-odd kilometres away from Kandy on the Colombo-Kandy Road, we made it there in time for the door to open for the day at 8.30am so we could participate in the morning (9.15am) feeding and to also not lose further time from our schedule. At this stage, we had a pretty good idea how the remainder of the week would roll but subject to plenty of flexibility.

Even though it was early, a small crowd was already waiting by the gate when we arrived. And perhaps precisely for the early hour, we didn’t see too many foreign tourists there either, the most obvious being a group of French tourists who were bantering among themselves (yes, I occasionally eavesdropped shamelessly but some of the things they said were too funny for me to disregard). Nilan made life easier for us by purchasing tickets on our behalf (we gave him the money and stood aside to wait) and with our (foreigner price) entry plus supplementary feeding (Rs 2,000 + Rs 250) tickets we made our way in.

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