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Published: March 24th 2009
18 March
Up at 5:45, dazed and confused, and puttered to Periyar National Park. Our driver said he’d seen tigers crossing the road some evenings - but sightings are very rare. We did notice a deer sleeping peacefully on our way in. We arrived at daybreak. An English couple, two avid ornithologists, joined us. Our trek started with a view of the dense cloud rising from a bottomless pot of mist into a South Indian jungle. We saw loads of Great Indian hornbill, kingfishers - both brown and the regular blue sort.
At dawn, a strange migration of a billion frogs all come from the lake and hop to the cool that the forest gives. David Attenborough, eat your heart out. We spied two birds of paradise with plumes extending beyond their tails; one was a blue-flycatcher which was chasing what looked like a bumblebee sized bug thing, round and round as it made an infinity sign with its beautiful plumage. (The bird watchers are in delighted shock - we’re thinking Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch - Michael Palin saying, “beautiful plumage”). Our hung-over guide left for a bit to ‘look for an elephant’ but we think he went
to talk to a man about an elephant. There were squirrels the size of Labradors rustling about in the canopy and making terrifying leaps from tree to tree. Katherine picked up a piece of fluff and wondered where it came from. The guide informed us all it was cotton - and luckily K. didn’t voice the first thing that came to her mind, which was “there are sheep in the jungle??” Nope, that’s wool, but it’s seven a.m. and who knew cotton fell like leaves off massive trees. G. collected some and made a soft nest, and all the while held a rock (convinced he was armed in case he had to defend himself). All in all, it was VERY SILLY. We ended up in a valley that reminded one of ‘the Land Before Time’; a broad and lusciously green valley teeming with so many varieties of wildlife.
Kath is not a keen birdwatcher and we were only walking a hundred meters or so before we had to stop while the other two got out their binoculars again. It did suck a bit but when we entered the jungle, our eyes had the edge. They both had glasses the
Up in the trees!
Is it a bird?! Thank god no, its an animal. thickness of a saucer and their binoculars gave them to much zoom. We spotted black monkeys and Kath spotted one scurrying mongoose.
We saw more wildlife in the café afterwards. There was a sign that read “beware of the monkeys”, tell us something we don’t know. (now know). They’re quick, real quick, we saw one jump seven feet clearing right over us and landing on a table with one Indian gentleman quietly and nonchalantly eating his breakkie. The monkey went straight for the jugular, the ‘Indian gravy’… bastard. The waiter meanwhile came in with a five-foot stick swiping like a kung-fu master. The monkey then ran for the nearest tree, about seven feet from the table, and cowered behind the trunk. One went for our water bottle but a slightly delayed reaction from George scared the thing to drop and run.
We journeyed back to our beautiful room to change clothes before meeting the elephants at an imaginatively named place called ‘Elephant Junction’. The road there was almost completely washed out and the monsoons have yet to come. After barking at their price, we agreed on a program and quickly boarded a 25-year-old female elephant. I let Kath
Lost in the woods
Our guide had to "see a man about an elephant" ride up front and after patting the head, Kath mentioned how thick its skin was and how horrible the thick black hairs sticking out everywhere were. The ears were pink and spotted with black dots and the top of her ears looked like a pterodactyl wings.
We had a man who shouted at the elephant to get it to do things. It was hot and just as the midday sun was at its strongest. The elephant was not the most energetic until half way up a hill the elephant stopped and reversed its way over a ditch and let a load out. Then we had a different elephant, it is so amusing to think of the difference. We plodded back and disembarked. We then fed the elephant melon and mango. She held her trunk up and opened her mouth; we could see the rank-looking tongue and its four huge corrugated molars.
Then it was bath time.
After much shouting at, by a man who looked pleased that he shouted for a living, our elephant stood in a shallow pool of soft sand and gently flowing water. With a great elephant effort, she got to her knees and
Weird bug
That's just what it is.. I'm pretty sure "weirdius bugus" is it's scientific name sunk on her side. She exhaled slowly but forcefully, grunted, farted, and then closed her eyes. Two coconut husks served as exfoliating brushes; we scrubbed her hard and she farted again with gratitude. Next, we lifted up her huge ears and sat behind them for some quick photo ops. I know I’ve said this before, but the one drawback of my new camera is that it brings out the “professional photographer” in everyone, and Mr. Elephant Junction adjusted us, and his elephant, many times before he got the right shot (not an easy task). The last event on our customized program was a shower.
“Do you have a spare set of clothes?” asked Mr. Elephant Junction. “Nope,” I replied, not bothering to add that I was wearing the only semi-clean ones I owned.
“It’s O.K.” he answered, “you can blah blah blah afterwards.” Understanding about 70% of what people say and being to embarrassed to ask for clarification on the rest is a common problem for us in India.
I sat on the elephant’s back, a prime position to watch her get her shower. On the command, she lifted her trunk and shot one million gallons of
water into my smiling face, not once, but four times. Mmm… elephant fresh! It turns out it was my turn to have a shower, and that the man had said, “it’s OK, you can wring your clothes out afterwards.” We were totally soaked, and still had another nature walk and boat cruise to contend with. Being already clad in shorts and tee-shirts, however, we were already so ridiculously underdressed by Indian standards that it didn’t really matter if we were dripping elephant water to boot.
We took the same tuk-tuk (our driver had waited around and watched all the action) to Periyar Tiger Reserve again, for a romantic early-evening cruise. The walk to the boats was long and traumatic, as elaborately dressed, wealthy Indian tourists couldn’t stand to get their feet wet, thus creating long, colourful logjams at every half-sunken bridge. On the lower deck, we chose seats as close to the driver as possible, both to afford us good views and perhaps sneak some titbits of information from the old park ranger. Every old man in this part of India is an ex-park ranger - at some point the government decided, in a fit of affirmative action, to
Monkeyin' Around
Here, monkey monkey monkey... AH! Get AWAY, monkey! sack all the current ones and employ only local indigenous rangers.
It was like no other place. There were huge, dead tree stumps jutting out of the water, that were eroding in between the grain the most as they decayed, giving them finger prints that identified how high the water once was. Along the banks of the river, it was clear how high the water rose after the rainy season. We wonder how the country copes. In between the river and the dense, tropical forest, we spotted herds of bison, deer, and wild boar galore, along with many more species of bird. The surreal stumps, together with the wild herds and the marginal possibility of a tiger sighting left us moved. No tigers showed, though, so we returned to watch another sunset from our marble veranda.
The walk into town is dotted with spice merchants, who usually (we read) represent their own families’ spice farms. We poked our heads into one, and were immediately sucked in. The vendor was ripping open bag after bag of fresh spices and concoctions, giving us tastes and sniffs. His farm had two cinnamon trees, and we tasted the freshest and most pungent
Mother and Baby
She teaches the young'un the sacred art of stealing food off tourists bark from the middle of the tree, which gave a rush that Big Red could never manage. We bought enough to ensure his family’s production throughout the next century, and he divided and sealed the bags with a candle.
We wandered into Kumily, totally confused about where to eat. We saw someone getting out of a car, so we asked him where to eat. He pointed us to a hotel that proved O.K., but the host seemed pained. Whenever we ordered something, he had to walk up and down a long flight of stairs, and did so extremely noisily and reluctantly.
What a day we’ve been through, we said to each other over the moaning and grunting. It has been eternally memorable.
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