When most people think of Arugam Bay, they think of the beach and the surf... Not us.
Sure, the beach is lovely! Actually, it was more than lovely - it was beautiful. And I shouldn't say "it" because there are SOOO many beaches, most of them completely deserted, but all equally beautiful. 

Although we were literally run off the road by safari drivers who just couldn’t believe that we would come to Tissa and NOT do a safari, we didn’t do one. Nor did we ever plan on doing one. The main highlights of the Yala safari are elephants – tick, and leopards – wow.. 
But, unfortunately, as so often happens in suddenly touristy areas, the drive to sell a safari tour and show a leopard and in turn make a quick buck, has taken precedent over the safety and wellbeing of the animal. We have heard from people who did the safaris of the drivers calling each other and of 20+ jeeps surrounding the one leopard.. poor thing. As much as we would have LOVED to have seen one, that just isn’t a practice we can condone..

Just driving along the road, first we came across this young mamout with his gorgeous elephant.

We are not big fans of keeping wild animals captive for the benefit of tourists,  but it was pretty cool to see this working elephant up close!

We had heard about a place on the "Trinco" road as it is called - the road between Trincomalee and Dambulla where you could see wild elephants sometimes. Slightly skeptical, but also excited, we decided to take a drive. About 10 minutes of driving super slow along the road, all of a sudden this huge head with flapping ears popped up in the grass literally 2 metres away from us!! No sooner had Roh said "elephant" when it started to charge us!!! And of course the tuktuk was in the wrong gear! It was a seriously close call but we got away, with a new respect for wild elephants..

A little further down the road we found a whole heap of them chilling by the side of the road!

Elephants are so cute!!

Gypsy didn't stop saying "wow" the whole way home!!