My Boots Smell Like Elephant Poop

---

On 7 Feb, we began to work our way east across India, first by boat and then in two taxis. Most memorable was a visit to a spice garden, where we saw many of the spices we use at home on the tree, plant or vine. We ate dinner at the gardener’s home - a first for us: banana leaves were our plates, we had no utensils, and ate tasty food with our fingers. We had fish, chicken, and potato curries, cassava (tapioca comes from it), and a really good mix of green beans, hot peppers and okra, which I’ll have to try at home. Next morning, we left early for the Periyar Tiger Reserve - it was COLD as we took little auto-rickshaws (also called tuk-tuks) to the Reserve. None of the people there thought we’d see tigers, since they’re nocturnal, but we were hoping to see some wild elephants. We took a bamboo raft across a mostly dry lake and hiked two hours seeing only wild birds and boars. Our guides called some comrades on a cell phone and learned of a group of elephants another mile away. We quickly walked over a hill and found the herd. We could see two of them. They suddenly left the trees where they were grazing, walking toward another group of trees, and our guide said it was time to get out of there. He told us that they had probably been “called” by the main herd because we’d been seen and they were probably getting ready to come and confront us - not a good position to be in with elephants while on foot. Tom’s comment while packing his shoes is the title for this blog entry.

---

Photos

Holy Cross Flowers
At the Spice Garden, we saw some beautiful native plants.

Wild Elephants
Just as we saw these two, they were "called" back to their herd, which had noticed us and were worried about the intruders.

Crowds
India has almost as many people as China (1.3 billion compared to our 300 million) and this area is considered to be less populated than northern India. I can't wait ...