Rob in Periyar

---

Okay, this should be a very long update. At the moment I'm nearby Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in a town called Kumily. The town is nothing special, but the surroundings are brilliant. It's up in the mountains a little bit, which means that we have some cool. Today it was a pleasant 25 degrees or so at it's max, and I'm now wearing trousers and trainers in the cool evening. All around are various tea and spice plantations as well as views of green hills, everywhere is very green.

Today we went into the wildlife sanctuary. We got to drive around in a Land Rover, where we saw some elephants and monkeys. It was generally very bushy and had lots of plants though, so you couldn't see so many creatures. The views were stunning none the less though from some hilltops. There are about 40 tigers in 700 km square, and the people who work there every day normally see one a year or so, so unsurprisingly we didn't catch sight of any today.

We then did a wlak for about 2 hours. There were lots of leeches, we had to put guards on our legs. They were crawling all over them and our shoes, it was a bit disgusting, and you always had to be on the lookout when walking past leaves and bushes. I only got 2, and they grew to be a reasonable size. Once they we taken off it wasn't a probelm though.

Then we relaxed by the lake before going out in pedlos. Colin's, Eileen's and mine was very lopsided and was close to sinking on Colins side and it didn't move very quickly, but we had fun. Then we were driven back to our hotel, Colin was allowed to drive some of it which wasn't as nerve wracking as I expected, although enthusiasticly beeping his horn in a wildlife sanctuary reduced our chances of seeing anything. Breakfast (I forgot to mention, we were picked up from our hotel at 5 am) and Lunch were all included in a reasonable price, so it's been a good day.

Now I'll step back in time to the 24th when me and Jenny once again got up at 5 to pick Katherine up from Trivanrdum. We took her back to Varkala and then moved on to Allepey on the 25th. From Allepey we spent a night on a houseboat on the backwaters, although it couldn't really get down any canals and such like because ws too big. It cost quite a bit but I'm not too hard up myself, although not everyone is the same.

We then got a ferry to Kottayam yesterday where we saw more of the backwaters for 1% of the fee we paid on the houseboat, and it was quite comfrotable. We could have also saved an extra day, but no regrets I guess, we had a decent time on the houseboat. Then we got the bus up to here. We may have a look at tea and spice plantations tommorow morning then get a late bus to Kochi. We're missing out Munnar due to time. If we had an extra day here it would have been cool to hire mopeds and drive around the hills for a day, but we'll see enough on the bus. Then we have a train from Kochi to Goa on Monday night, the night I was planning to watch Reading v Newcastle but it wasn't to be.

We bumped into a couple of travellers in Varkala, and Ken and Omar have been with us here. Omar is Scottish and is meeting other friends now, he's 25 and he's having a few months out from working. Ken is coming to Kochi with us but not Goa because he's been already and he only has about a week and a half left out here, he's just on a 4 week holiday and he's Canadian. We get on well with both of them and we managed to fit 8 with luggage on a public bus without shouting with the conductor face to face. When we get into Goa it'll then just be Me, Colin, Nicole, Eileen, Katherine and Jenny (although we're not completely sure on her movements after Goa, she may try going home early). Plus we're meeting Ed from the TEFL week there and we'll probably meet new people like we did in Varkala.

We find our plans change, but so long as we're in Delhi by 23rd May everyone will be happy, I need to decide what I want to do between then and returning to Tiru to collect my leaving documents. I'm thinking I may go north to the hills for some cool, I'll have to ask others about it. When I head back to Tiru I'll almost certainly spend a day or 2 visiting Kanji again aswell, which I look forward to.

I hope you're all well,

Rob.

---