In this series, I will share my elephant encounters. These are moments from different forests and years. Each one stayed with me in a very different way. Some were close, some were tense, and some were simply about realizing how little we see in the wild even when we think we are looking carefully. The first story was from BR Hills. Here is a second story I remember.

Honey Valley, Coorg, Karnataka (2021)

Elephants were known to frequent the area, and unfortunately, they did not have a good reputation with the local populace. Visitors and tourists were typically warned about them. It was the end of March (off-season), and we chose to stay at the farther guest house. This meant we walked to the main guest house three times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We enjoyed these walks, often birdwatching along the way.

One evening, we made our way to dinner at around 6:30 pm. It was a slow walk, and we stopped by a stream and sat for a while. We had a sense that there was some activity in the forest behind us. We scanned the area but saw nothing. We finished dinner by 8:30 pm and were about to walk back when the staff advised us not to. Elephants had been spotted, so they offered to drop us off by car. A staff member, along with his cousin, who was on his first day working as a driver, set off toward the second guest house with us.

About halfway, around a bend, we saw a large pile of elephant dung, absolutely fresh. We immediately became alert. It was dark except for the jeep’s headlights. Slowly, we moved to the next bend and saw a mid-sized elephant on the path, its back facing us. It was at the same stream where we had stopped earlier!

The new driver froze; he was not prepared for this. The experienced staff member reacted quickly. He told us to check if there were elephants behind us. We scanned with our torches, and the road behind looked clear. The experienced driver and the newcomer switched seats, and on our cue, he reversed quickly. The noise alerted the elephants ahead. We backtracked about 300 meters and waited.

Then we moved forward again slowly. By then, the elephant had moved into the forest, which is what our experienced staff expected. As we passed the bend near the stream at speed, we saw not one, but three elephants at the edge of the road.

All they wanted was a few seconds alone so they could leave the main path.

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