Thank you, I appreciate you taking the effort to check out my post, it's only a plus you like it as well :)

These elephants used to humans since they were either born in the orphanage or either taken to there at a young age (wounded and abandoned babies). Since they used to humans, there is nothing to worry about. There are some wild angry ones, but those are isolated from humans, they stay in a separate part of the orphanage.

I personally managed to go as close as a half a meter and pet them, my girlfriend was even closer. Animals usually don't harm if they don't feel threatened or their babies threatened.

Up north I had the luck to catch a herd of wild animals, now that is dangerous since they living in the wild with their babies, they not used to humans.

This elephant orphanage is pretty famous in the country, it was established by the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation in the seventies. If you don't know about the place and don't ask around, you prob won't hear about it, since it's 1h 20m away from the closest largeish city, but a true traveller always aims to discover. :)