Elephants having a bath in the river in Pinnawala, Sri Lanka

It happens , that instead of planned couple hours in the bus, the trip lasts more than six hours with 3 different local busses…

This time, it was totally our fault. On the map we looked at Pinnawala and without even hesitating that there might be two of them started heading there. Just in good half an hour realized that the trip will be much longer. And the only reason we had to go there the same day, because we made a reservation in the hotel.

Usually we don’t book any hotels in advance, but its holiday season and we knew particular hotel where we wanted to stay. Some days in the future this hotel was fully booked ( at least that what booking.com said). So we did’t want to loose a chance.

Hotel “Pinnalanda” is one of the three hotels situated right on the river, where every morning and afternoon people can watch elephants getting a bath. They are brought here from Elephant Orphanage right across the street. Like we’ve been told baby elephants found in the jungles without parents and aggressive adults , making danger to others, are brought over here.

If you want to watch them bath and visit orphanage, there is a 15$ fee. We didn’t visit orphanage and once we stayed at the hotel, we didn’t have to pay anything extra, and could enjoy the view from private balcony.