From the boathouse, I took a public ferry through the backwater canals to Kottayam, the urban commercial hub of the backwaters, and then a bus up up up into the Western Ghats range to Kumily, the gateway to Periyar Tiger Reserve. The ferry was another opportunity to watch village life in the backwaters, which seems not unlike life in other rural villages, but the backwaters overlay the common washing-cooking-moving-about scenes with mystical quiet remote isolation, a different world. The bus ride up the mountains to Kumily goes through rubber tree plantations, then through shady coffee, tea, and spice plantations. Rubber (like coffee) is gathered on a micro-scale, where individual families with a few trees tap then dry the milk at home, smoke it in their kitchens to give it color, and then sell it directly to
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