Wild elephants around Mattupetty dam

after hiking in the tea plantations we headed for

Mattupetty dam because our guide had told us that if you're lucky you can see elephants there

so we left Munnar...

and headed for the dam..together with so many other tourists..

since it was Dussehra weekend everyone else had vacation to..

both of us said that with all these people there will be no elephants...

I'm sure happy we where wrong 

had to stop at this bee tree....so many bees ! look closely and you'll see

the reservoir at the dam...

then I saw my first elephant far far away on the other side of the dam..

my heart jumped with joy !

so cool...glad I spotted him..and I thought that if I see one there's got to be more since they live in families...and I was right !

 just a little up ahead we got too see a family of five..

incredible...they where so close...

now this guy came really close ...

they are so protective of their small ones...

and they started to move so we had to get out of there...

don't want any angry elephant encounter..

so we drove further away...

when they moved they hid the baby in between them...

now I actually saw that there was one with some small tusks..

I could have stayed there the rest of the day...

best part is that we saw three more on the way back..

8 wild elephants in a day...not bad at all...

amazing to get to see them in the wild like this..

wow, what a day we had !