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Published: November 25th 2008
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Kerela next stop named 'gods own country' by the tourist board, wanted to see for my self.
Ended up having a public bus booked for me for the 9 hours from Mysore to Cochin or Kochin or Cochi or Kochi(depending on where you read it) was a bit nervous because was very tired it ended up being the most comfortable so far and only a few people on it as well. Anyway arrived in Cochin at 6 in the morning in fantastic form, ready for all the auto rickshaw drivers to fight over me, and there was nothing. They were all lined up in a rank... first time saw that and only one tried to convince me to go to his friends hotel (they get commission) but even he left me alone after a minute. I officially loved Kerela from the start, and was the same everywhere I went in Kerela the people are so nice, the city is a series of islands so to get to Fort Cochin was a 20 minute boat ride arrived hassle free and started scouting out a place to stay, after a few a guy pulled up to me on a bike and asked
Chinese fishing nets, used throughout kerela
well not really used for fishing, just for us whities to look at and take pics if I had anywhere to stay, said I was ok thought he was another tout looking for commission, he said he owned the place, seemed like a honest guy so jumped on the back and we headed off, brought me to his brothers home stay, nice place and he said I could use his sons bicycle whenever I wanted, what more could I want.
Next day did the sights around Cochin, a few churches, not like Irish churches one of them was ridiculous. Bumped into people from goa and hampi randomly, its been happening a lot for such a big country.
The next day did 7 hour backwaters cruise, the Kerelan back waters are on the lonely planets top ten things to do before you die list, you can rent house boats and cruise round the silent high ways. I did a shorter tourist version. The scenery was lovely and once we got away from the roads. The boats are old rice boats pushed along by 2 guys with bamboo poles, I tried it on one of the lakes and made a idiot of myself, every time I pushed the pole down either nearly fell in or lost
Kerelan Back Waters
Fair play to this guy, he did it for about 5 hours, i tried it and almost fell in or lost the pole each push. the pole. and I broke out in a sweat after about 20 secs, and gave up after a minute. in my defense there was a strong cross wind, visited a village where they make rope out of coconut husk and another where they turn sea shells into something powdery. It was really nice but did get very boring towards the end, got talking to a south African otherwise probably would have gone mad.
5 am the next morning headed of to Kumilly for Periyar Tiger Reserve 1000 sq km reserve in the western ghats home to 40 tigers over 1000 elephants and a lot of other animals, the driver was ether a terrible or a wonderful driver depending on how you look at it, I went with wonderful, his overtaking on blind corners was amazing, only one other vehicle over took him, another bus, and that sent him mad, racing down hill after him. Anyway arrived in Kumilly in one piece body a little bit rattled, checked into a hotel then went to collect a the ticket for a 3 day 'tiger trail' trek the next morning.
Next morning met at the office were handed leech guards and
Our elephant-proof digs
not many people can say that met our 5 guides and our armed guard. And started of into the park, it was about a 3-4 hour trek to the campsite, on the way we saw deer monkeys wild bore countless trees used for spices furniture medicine, we also saw a dead bison killed by a tiger 2 nights before, its really rare to see that because most of then are killed inside the forest and not noticed, the guides who are out every day only see tigers once every year or two, they are excellent at hiding and have 20 sq km each to hid in, after arriving in the camp and a amazing lunch we headed off op the hills in search if elephants, the guard was amazing, after 5 mins he stopped said some thing to one of the guides and loaded the gun and said to us he smelt elephant, it had begun. About a half hour later we heard elephants, they had smelt us and were telling each other, it took another half hour to find them walking silently through elephant grass, hearing them every so often, the we found them, about 50m away eating away, couldn't see them properly because of
the grass was around the same height as us but id was amazing to see them there wild in their own habitat, with nothing but gun Michael Collins would have thought was old to protect us, they had a few stories of people whose arms were broken by trunks, and one girl who was bitten in the ass by a wild boar.
Did the same the next day two treks but nothing much seen, a few bison, one or two friggin huge, that night paddled to where the bison was killed and waited a hour or two to see if the tiger would come back (it had the night before, and someone had seen it that morning) but no joy there were about 10 wild boar tucking into it and a elephant wandered out of the trees and stood on both of the automatic cameras set up, so back to camp, back home the next morning stopped by the dead bison to find the tiger had been back at some stage and pulled it 20m up the bank. (Tigers weigh max 300kg the bison prob 1000kg).
I prob haven’t described it very well but was one of the
best experiences of my life, being out away from everything, in the middle of the jungle was amazing, wading through mud and all types of shit, it come alive at night, birds crickets and monkeys, our guides were brilliant particularly the guard, would follow him anywhere, the first morning went off to go to the toilet and half way through was convinced I heard something walking towards me, cant remember the last time I was that scared. We didn’t see any tiger but did see tiger paw prints, crap, piss, fresh scratch marks in a tree, teeth marks which was good enough for me, wasn’t really expecting to see one anyway,
Spent the next three days in Kumilly, didn’t get up to much then back to cochin to catch a flight to Delhi, arrived last night, and its wasn’t really what I expected...
Haven’t proof read this so no idea if it makes sense have done it over the last week so might not make sense anyway I really don’t care talk to you soon
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Emilie
non-member comment
Oooooh
It all looks amazing! The tigers probably smelt you coming and scattered!!! hahahah :)