SRI LANKA: MINNERIYA NATIONAL PARK

Our perceptive guide Sanjay picked up on the fact that I have a thing for elephants and quickly arranged an extemporaneous trip to Minneriya National Park, the best place in Sri Lanka to see elephants. In fact, it is supposed to be the largest known gathering place of Asian elephants in the world.

Late afternoon is a good time to see elephants in the park because they come to the lake to drink. Apparently we weren't the only ones who wanted to watch the elephants imbibe. Luckily, a limited number of vehicles is allowed in the park. Unluckily, many of them were in front of us:

There were things to look at while we waited for the gates to open, such as this tree with really long pods--too long to be vanilla beans, but I'm not sure what else they would be:

I like this termite mound, the Frank Gehry version as compared to the ones we saw in southern Africa:

Then there was this fun sign. First of all, don't you love their writing? Everything is based on a circle. I like the advice "Do Not Fire" (you would expect a gun in the picture), "Do Not Shout" with the trumpet, and "Do Not Alight the Vehicle," something they are very, very, VERY strict about: