India, Sri Lanka and The Maldives - Days 32 to 34 - Periyar (aka Kumily & Thekkady)

Periyar Tiger Reserve (which is more of an elephant reserve - they have 600 elephants here and only about 35 tigers) at the Thekkady boat landing near the village of Kumily. I hope all that's clear! We're here for our afternoon boat ride on a British made man made lake, now a nature reserve

It was a pretty journey, getting us to our very attractive homestay just before 13.00, out again at 14.30, just time to do a little washing and hang it in full sun on our balcony. To the nature park, called a tiger reserve, and there are a few, but it’s mostly about the elephants here. The car has to stay in the carpark and we have to get a bus to the park, to the ticket office for the boat. Believe it or not there is a man laid on to buy the bus ticket, put us on the bus, get us off the bus and buy our boat tickets it’s unbelievable! This was a boat trip to see wildlife along the banks of the lake, we saw bison and deer, cormorant and snake bird. I think I saw three sloth bears on our way back, I was the only using binoculars and everyone else, including the spotters had stopped looking. By the time I’d convinced myself and decided where they were with the naked eye it was too late for Brian so I’ll never know, though I am 90% sure. What we didn’t see was elephants, very disappointing.

Really very touristy here, particularly as it was a Sunday. We had to wear these very cumbersome lifejackets, following an accident about 5 years ago where a boat capsized (probably everyone rushing over to one side to see something) killing 48 people. We'd read in the Rough Guide that they are now only supposed to carry 20 people on the top deck now. I counted, there were 14 rows with 4 people on each. Do the maths, is that 20? You're also not supposed to stand up, we didn't, many others did. The notice says keep quiet, its the only way not to scare wildlife away. Even though it was announced, not many people took notice. Couple that with a noisy, smelly diesel boat, it was not a recipe for idea wildlife viewing - and it wasn't

Shareef wanted us to eat at his friends restaurant, never know if this is a good thing or not but we may as well, on our way back from the park, except it wasn’t open yet, so a little mooch in the shops first. It was a strange little restaurant where his friend was actually giving a cookery lesson. Shareef wanted us to try puttu, native to Kerela, which is steamed cylinders of ground rice with a little coconut, water and salt. As something to mop the gravy up it was fine though it really tasted of nothing. The gravy however came with the whole fish, wrapped in a banana leaf, priced according to size in the menu (always a worry). Though with the whole meal, probably including Shareef’s take away coming to £8.50 it’s probably ok!

Our meal at Shareef's mates restaurant. The fish was excellent, the tube of rice you can see on the plate, was OK. Only water (or lime juice or tea/coffee) to drink. Oh well, a night off the alcohol will do us good!

Day 33

A walking tour in the park, though not until 10.00 which didn’t feel like the ideal time to go animal spotting, but hey. Off we went, another man to buy tickets and take us to our walk departure point where we met our park ranger. He put us on a bamboo raft and pulled us across to the other bank, just us, though shortly followed by a group of 5. (I think they’d split us by age, but whatever) off we walked with a trainee lady in tow, just round the bend he got into conversation with another ranger and we turned round and walked back, and on, there are elephants to be seen. With that we were off, we might have been the oldies, but we were ahead of everyone else and while they were trying to find wood to make stepping stones we were picking our way through the slightly boggy section… and there they were, three lovely elephants, just minding their own business, slightly away from the waters edge, doing their own thing, hurrah. We weren’t close enough to cause them any bother as we stood and watched them till they ambled off into the brush where amazingly, unless you knew they were there you couldn’t see them. How can you miss an elephant?

Nice views on the boat ride

The rest of the walk was about as expected, saw a few, and heard a lot of birds, langur monkeys, a samur deer, a giant squirrel sleeping in a tree. But we didn’t care, we’d seen elephants.

We saw some buffalo (or Bison - I won't bore you with the joke about the difference between a Buffalo and a Bison. You can ask me if you want the punchline)

Back on the bus to Shareef, we’d like a little lunch and then back to the homestay for our spice walk. We had a little lunch and then found ourselves at a spice tour, but not organised by the homestay. The local guide from this morning was there so perhaps it was legit, but by the time I’d got the WhatsApp back from Ranjeet that the spice tour IS with the homestay it was too late. It didn’t cost us, though we did get the hard sell in the shop, but it’s Shareef trying to get his kick backs again!

And we saw some deer. We saw a few birds too, but I didn't see Jackie's bears. She didn't notify me quickly enough to point my camera

Finally back at the lovely hotel (with a book exchange, only the second I’ve seen), doing the blog before the coffee section of the homestay tour and dinner here to chill

Next day (Day 33) and we arrive at the park for our walking safari, the start being across the river on a hand pulled bamboo ferry. It was a world away from yesterdays motorised boat, but only just round the corner. It was still and quiet with just bird and forest noises - fabulous!

The little garden walk was a bit sad actually, but he is a very sweet young man running the family business and studying for his MBA.

As we got pulled gently across it was just so relaxing

Mum cooked chicken biryani for 9 guests which was very nice, though unlike the previous place we were all at individual tables. We were talking to the couple from Singapore who are travelling for 11 days on a hired motorbike, they’ve got to be mad, when I realised another Asian looking girl was sitting on her own with her book. She’s from Norway of Vietnamese parents and was really quite irritating, but I still couldn’t see her sitting there on her own!

After setting off in one direction we retraced our steps and went in the other direction on the advice of a fellow ranger. There, at the extent of my zoom lens were elephants, so we set off round the edge of the lake towards them

This was as close as we got which, although it looks quite close was probably about 200m away. They were unaware of our presence just going about their business. Look at their ears, Indian elephants have small ears, African large, so there's no doubt where we are

This is an unzoomed photo just to show how far away we were. Can you see them? They are in the bushes dead centre. We couldn't go any closer as  we were on foot with no protection and these are wild animals

We watched them for about 20 minutes until they disappeared into the trees and we wandered off into the forest to see what else we could see. Here's a few Langur monkeys who were darting through the trees. It was very difficult to get video as they we so fast and did amazing leaps between trees

This was funnel fungus. Very delicate

Difficult to get in flight, but I did manage to get this quite large blue butterfly once it settled

Interesting vines hanging down. We were just walking through this forest on our own following elephant tracks and past an antelope skull that a tiger had eaten and wondering what procedures are in place to keep us safe should an elephant or tiger suddenly appear and threaten us. He'd already told us it is elephant mating season and males can get aggressive. We asked our guide the question, but it seemed to get lost  in translation (or he didn't want to tell us), so we just hoped there was some plan. Senses were on high alert, a) because we hoped we see something and b) because we didn't want to be attacked by something

Loved the bridge!

A Banyan tree starting to spread round its host tree. We didn't realise until then that is is parasitic, surrounding a tree, taking its strength and killing it

Elephants were here

That dark shape up there is, we were told, a sleeping giant squirrel

See that tree? Its a cotton tree. Didn't know there was such a thing...

But looking high up there, beyond the green leaves, you can see one of  its branches covered in cotton

Back at the homestay for a walk round their spice garden. This is cardamom and it grows in abundance here, but it has special needs. It needs to grow in semi shade, have just the right amount of water and a very specific soil acidity. The cardamom pods are at the base of the plant and have to be picked by hand and dried. It's very labour intensive, hence the cost

A cocoa pod growing in a tree. There are lots of home made chocolate factories round here making all types of yummy chocolate. Unfortunately the birds and squirrels also like it so empty pods are often seen on the trees too

Pepper, its a vine that needs to grow up a host tree. Here's something else we found out, there are four types of pepper, green, red, white and black, but they are all from the same plant. Green is unripe, red is ripe. If you pick green pepper and dry it it turns into black pepper. If you take red peppers, soak it for a certain time then peel it is white

This was our huge Homestay room in Periyar, it was  a delight. We had a balcony (you can just see it through the window) and fabulous views of hills and forest. It has been a delight here, but we've now left and are heading out of the mountains to the sea at Kochi where it'll be a lot hotter. See you there...