Days 45-47
As stated in my earlier post we are now in the village of Kumily in our final state in India, Kerala. Our reason of visiting this mountain resort in the Western Ghats was to visit Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. It is a comfortable temperature in the hills and the town is relaxed and easy going and to my wife's delight it has lots of Italian restaurants. However we have returned from our safari empty handed without a tiger sighting (or little else!), but we had a hilarious time.
Throughout our travels in India, Kerala has received a lot of glowing recommendations from our fellow tourists. It has been painted as a laid back and beautiful place unlike much of the rest of India and the polar opposite to the oppressive crowds of the North. So it has a lot to live up to as we near our final week in India, lets hope it can. Our first town in Kerala is Kumily, a relaxed little place with the wildlife park seemingly the sole reason for its existence it is settled in the hills among the picturesque cardamon and tea plantation.
On settling into our homestay on Sunday (7th) afternoon we also booked a safari into the Park. I thought that this was as good of chance of seeing wildlife as any. It was an all day trip with a morning jeep ride through the park. Although we hadn't heard any direct feedback on the safari it seemed popular and comprised of three activities as well as two meals so it didn't seem bad value at almost £25/$40 each. We spent the evening watching the West Indies beat the host Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup Final. After a shaky start and a partisan crowd they powered easily to victory. We set our alarms for our early rise on Monday (8th) morning.
The 5:15am start meant that we could enter the park at dawn when most animals are on the move. Being realistic I was under no illusions of seeing a tiger, even though there are around 50 tigers in the park, wild tigers are famously illusive, still though I was hopeful of some wildlife such as wild elephants the park is famous for. Our transport was an open top jeep with two other couples and following a delicious cup of tea we entered the park as the sun was just lighting the sky. There were 3-4 other vehicles on a safari as well and each car teamed up to sight the animals. Our driver had a strange technique for driving and sighting at the same time, which involved standing half in half out of the jeep with one foot inside controlling the accelerator and one hand on the steering while while he observed the forest for animals. Soon the vehicle stopped and the driver told us to be quiet, he spotted a Giant squirrel. A creature that was running and jumping about the trees much as you would expect a giant squirrel to do. Great we thought, this should be start of many sightings. And so it was, many more sighting of giant squirrels! I am not being completely honest there as we also saw black monkeys but they don't count as they were outside of our restaurant this morning and my wife was feeding monkey's in Darjeeling.
Just then one of the cars up front sighted an elephant. Not quite sure how he did as it was about 2 miles away on the top of a mountain. I had been prepared for this safari though as I had brought with me a pair of binoculars. Not the best move in hindsight as they have been weighing me down the entire trip but at this moment they came to the rescue and rewarded about 8 people with a sighting of the elephants as they were completely indistinguishable to the naked eye. Again after feeding an elephant in Hampi, sighting a few from 2 miles off through binoculars left us a little deflated. However, the best part of the safari was yet to come.
After breakfast we set off on our "walk" The guides idea of a walk was a little below a run but we kept our own pace and he had to wait. After coming to the top of a hill he decided he had seen something and so he took off down through enormous grass that was twice our height and into the jungle proper. He was continuously turning around and telling us to be quiet, like he had just sensed an animal we were going to scare off, however only one type of animal turned up on the entire "walk" and there was no chance of scaring it off: Leeches! It had just rained the night before and lurking beneath the dead leaves on the damp forest floor were hundreds of the wriggly little bloodsuckers. All making a bee line for us! I had encountered leeches before in Nepal during a trek and they become an obsession. You are constantly looking down flicking them off, you become paranoid that one has climbed up your trouser leg, down your back or into your shoe and this experience proved no different. Eventually we make it clear of the damp forest floor to the safety of a rocky river. So with completely inadequate footwear we made our way downstream. After several slips and falls I made my feelings known to the guide, "This is not a walk, this is gorging" and "Our shoes aren't any good for this, its too dangerous" or "Hey, my wife has a broken toe, we thought we were going on a walk" To be fair he then tried to help us (but was actually hindering us more!) and he still seemed convinced that there was a herd of elephants just around the corner.
There wasn't of course and to top off the "walk" he decided that at it would be a good idea to march us up to the top of a mountain for nothing other than what appeared to be the view. So after a sweaty half hour slog up the steep slope it was back for lunch.We munched down the lunch and then it was of on our final activity: a relaxing boat ride on the lake, yeah right! The 7 of us performed a group balancing act to squeeze into the tiny boat as the light rain started to fall. Our guide rowed us to a waterfall where he proceeded to give himself a full10minute shower in the waterfall, soap and all!. The other two men in the group decided to join him however my wife and I had decided that we would go for the safe-room approach to the rain and donned our water proofs so I was staying put. For the return trip in the boat the rain gradually got heavier and turned into a real downpour. I felt vindicated with my choice of clothes, however my expensive Marmot jacket was once again proving it worthlessness in heavy rain and I along with everyone else got thoroughly drenched. Until we reached shelter I could only laugh as our entire "safari" was turning into a complete farce of the type that John Cleese would have overseen in Fawlty Towers.
The jeep trip back out of the park did provide us with another animal though, a herd of deer. But it was a classic example of too little too late, our minds had been made up, the safari was a disaster. I harked back to my safari in the Kruger National park in South Africa of how there were antelope around every corner and every hour there was at least an elephant, giraffe, buffalo, or lions to be seen. It was back to the hotel to shower off the rigours of our "walk" and a full body inspection for leeches, none for either for us except for some suck marks on my leg, at least we had something to be thankful for.
Today we have just spent relaxing and recovering from yesterday activities. Tomorrow we leave the cool Western Ghats and head for the beach town of Varkala.
Also congratulations to Beragh's neighbours Errigal Ciaran on winning the Tyrone County Football Championship with their amalgamated team.
As stated in my earlier post we are now in the village of Kumily in our final state in India, Kerala. Our reason of visiting this mountain resort in the Western Ghats was to visit Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. It is a comfortable temperature in the hills and the town is relaxed and easy going and to my wife's delight it has lots of Italian restaurants. However we have returned from our safari empty handed without a tiger sighting (or little else!), but we had a hilarious time.
Throughout our travels in India, Kerala has received a lot of glowing recommendations from our fellow tourists. It has been painted as a laid back and beautiful place unlike much of the rest of India and the polar opposite to the oppressive crowds of the North. So it has a lot to live up to as we near our final week in India, lets hope it can. Our first town in Kerala is Kumily, a relaxed little place with the wildlife park seemingly the sole reason for its existence it is settled in the hills among the picturesque cardamon and tea plantation.
On settling into our homestay on Sunday (7th) afternoon we also booked a safari into the Park. I thought that this was as good of chance of seeing wildlife as any. It was an all day trip with a morning jeep ride through the park. Although we hadn't heard any direct feedback on the safari it seemed popular and comprised of three activities as well as two meals so it didn't seem bad value at almost £25/$40 each. We spent the evening watching the West Indies beat the host Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup Final. After a shaky start and a partisan crowd they powered easily to victory. We set our alarms for our early rise on Monday (8th) morning.
The 5:15am start meant that we could enter the park at dawn when most animals are on the move. Being realistic I was under no illusions of seeing a tiger, even though there are around 50 tigers in the park, wild tigers are famously illusive, still though I was hopeful of some wildlife such as wild elephants the park is famous for. Our transport was an open top jeep with two other couples and following a delicious cup of tea we entered the park as the sun was just lighting the sky. There were 3-4 other vehicles on a safari as well and each car teamed up to sight the animals. Our driver had a strange technique for driving and sighting at the same time, which involved standing half in half out of the jeep with one foot inside controlling the accelerator and one hand on the steering while while he observed the forest for animals. Soon the vehicle stopped and the driver told us to be quiet, he spotted a Giant squirrel. A creature that was running and jumping about the trees much as you would expect a giant squirrel to do. Great we thought, this should be start of many sightings. And so it was, many more sighting of giant squirrels! I am not being completely honest there as we also saw black monkeys but they don't count as they were outside of our restaurant this morning and my wife was feeding monkey's in Darjeeling.
Just then one of the cars up front sighted an elephant. Not quite sure how he did as it was about 2 miles away on the top of a mountain. I had been prepared for this safari though as I had brought with me a pair of binoculars. Not the best move in hindsight as they have been weighing me down the entire trip but at this moment they came to the rescue and rewarded about 8 people with a sighting of the elephants as they were completely indistinguishable to the naked eye. Again after feeding an elephant in Hampi, sighting a few from 2 miles off through binoculars left us a little deflated. However, the best part of the safari was yet to come.
After breakfast we set off on our "walk" The guides idea of a walk was a little below a run but we kept our own pace and he had to wait. After coming to the top of a hill he decided he had seen something and so he took off down through enormous grass that was twice our height and into the jungle proper. He was continuously turning around and telling us to be quiet, like he had just sensed an animal we were going to scare off, however only one type of animal turned up on the entire "walk" and there was no chance of scaring it off: Leeches! It had just rained the night before and lurking beneath the dead leaves on the damp forest floor were hundreds of the wriggly little bloodsuckers. All making a bee line for us! I had encountered leeches before in Nepal during a trek and they become an obsession. You are constantly looking down flicking them off, you become paranoid that one has climbed up your trouser leg, down your back or into your shoe and this experience proved no different. Eventually we make it clear of the damp forest floor to the safety of a rocky river. So with completely inadequate footwear we made our way downstream. After several slips and falls I made my feelings known to the guide, "This is not a walk, this is gorging" and "Our shoes aren't any good for this, its too dangerous" or "Hey, my wife has a broken toe, we thought we were going on a walk" To be fair he then tried to help us (but was actually hindering us more!) and he still seemed convinced that there was a herd of elephants just around the corner.
There wasn't of course and to top off the "walk" he decided that at it would be a good idea to march us up to the top of a mountain for nothing other than what appeared to be the view. So after a sweaty half hour slog up the steep slope it was back for lunch.We munched down the lunch and then it was of on our final activity: a relaxing boat ride on the lake, yeah right! The 7 of us performed a group balancing act to squeeze into the tiny boat as the light rain started to fall. Our guide rowed us to a waterfall where he proceeded to give himself a full10minute shower in the waterfall, soap and all!. The other two men in the group decided to join him however my wife and I had decided that we would go for the safe-room approach to the rain and donned our water proofs so I was staying put. For the return trip in the boat the rain gradually got heavier and turned into a real downpour. I felt vindicated with my choice of clothes, however my expensive Marmot jacket was once again proving it worthlessness in heavy rain and I along with everyone else got thoroughly drenched. Until we reached shelter I could only laugh as our entire "safari" was turning into a complete farce of the type that John Cleese would have overseen in Fawlty Towers.
The jeep trip back out of the park did provide us with another animal though, a herd of deer. But it was a classic example of too little too late, our minds had been made up, the safari was a disaster. I harked back to my safari in the Kruger National park in South Africa of how there were antelope around every corner and every hour there was at least an elephant, giraffe, buffalo, or lions to be seen. It was back to the hotel to shower off the rigours of our "walk" and a full body inspection for leeches, none for either for us except for some suck marks on my leg, at least we had something to be thankful for.
Also congratulations to Beragh's neighbours Errigal Ciaran on winning the Tyrone County Football Championship with their amalgamated team.
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