Elephants

I spent 12 days volunteering with elephants. I loved the elephants and work was what it was described on the net.

Prity guesthouse was a great experience. They are very welcoming and they let me participate in their birthday party and diwali. They always made sure I am happy with everything and my trip is safe as I am a female solo traveler.

People at guesthouse answered all my questions about India and their culture and so did Surendra and the conversations were easy and interesting.

I also recommend to use VWI's drivers. Tota Ram and Shekra. They know the place well and have great characters. I had one scary experience with a tuktuk I took from a street so to avoid any risks I would use these guys. I highly recommend women travelers to be careful here.

My only disappointments were the chains elephants have. I am a huge animal lover and it was hard to see that but this is how it is for now. I heard some of the elephants were rescued from places like circus which I consider a lot worse option for them. Here the people who work with them genuinely care about them and they made sure I cleaned their blocks well enough. Hopefully one day they have bigger places where they can stay when they are not working. Also I had imagined there are other volunteers the whole time I am staying here but because of the time of the year (October) and people not having holidays I felt sometimes lonely even though VWI gave me ideas what to do on free time. I would definitely do this again but I would make sure that there would be company of other volunteers or my friends.