Trekking in the Indian jungle - tips on how to avoid wildlife

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Periyar National Park now comes highly recommended by Ed and Ollie to anyone who happens to be within earshot for the next 24 hours. We have just had an interesting and entertaining 12 hours in a jeep, in a rowing boat and on foot in one of India’s most beautiful national parks.

Everyone venturing into these parks wants to see a tiger or a leopard but the chances are slim. There are plenty of them around as the footprints and droppings regularly testified but they are far too cunning to be spotted by a group of five heavy-footed tourists. In fact, it was the same with most of the animals. Our guide assured us that there were cobras and vipers a plenty and that he saw them several times a week. However, the closest we got to seeing a snake was a discarded skin on a bridge. We heard monkeys but didn’t always see them. It didn’t matter though. The knowledge that these animals are around and that we just possibly could have bumped into them around any bamboo thicket was enough. ‘Better to travel in hope than to arrive’ someone (normally Wilde) once said!

The jeep picked us up at 5am which was unpleasantly early, made to seem even earlier by the late night Ollie and I had watching Everton v Arsenal! It was freezing cold to start with and the two German ladies with us giggled continually for no apparent reason - it might have been Ollie they were laughing at, it might not! As soon as we were in the park though the sun began to emerge through the fog and the ladies quietened down. The first animal sighting was a wild chicken - not exactly what we had hoped for but it was an animal nonetheless. A monkey and a giant squirrel followed but there were no other great sightings before breakfast… or after breakfast or until five minutes of the end of the tour when we were treated to 4 elephants having a snack pretty close by.

It was a fun day and heartening to see a park where animals are thriving. We seem to have timed the seasons extremely well as there are very few tourists around and consequently rooms are easy to find and cheap. The cricket world cup entertains us every evening after supper - tonight, the 18 stone Bermudan against the Indians!

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Comments

[Will]

Keep it up...
Enjoying the blog, please keep it going. Hope you're behaving yourself and Ollie is not leading you astray! W (From Terema Head Office)

[Alex and Liane]

G'day from Oz (or is it good night?) Glad to hear the tigers didn't get you. How's the grub? More pictures please!