Periyar Tiger Reserve

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The periyar tiger reserve is 777 square km, including a man made lake, and was created by the British. It is set pretty much in / next to the town of Kumily. We took local buses to get to Kumily which were all in all pretty uneventful apart from Calum (the mentos king - he bought one of the shop owners out of his stock) caused furore by giving some school kids some sweets, they then would not stop bugging us, a lot with questions, more asking if they could have our umbrellas etc!

On arrival we met with Sashee a guide that comes from Kozhimala, in fact volunteers currently stay in his house! We went onto our hotel where we were promised hot showers 24 hrs, a lie of course, a freezing cold shower was all we got, it did though have an actual shower, which was better than the bucket! The Friday night i got to see some tame elephants you could ride (i didn't as will be doing in Thailand maybe) on the way to Kathakali dance performance, which I have to say was a little odd! It basically consisted of two people in heavy make up using movement and facial expressions to convey a story, basically that a women tried to tempt a man away from his place on her way to heaven, he chopped bits of her off with a sword and she went to hell, it was all a little odd!

The next morning involved an early rise to get a 7 o'clock trek round the jungle, i did see some monkeys and squirrels, even some elephant tracks but no elephants or tigers. The trek itself was a little disappointing for me, only because i'd already spent 3 weeks in the jungle and much of what the guide had to tell me i already knew. However after a very hearty breakfast, we were entertained by some very cheeky monkeys before we headed out on a boat trip round the 26 square km lake, where i did get to see some elephants which was a definite making of the trip. The evening was taken up by a performance of Kalaripayattu demonstration which really was amazing. The traditional martial using hands and weapons in conflict, many of the skills were shown, with a stunning finish of jumping through fiery rings!

The trip was topped off with a continental meal, that both Calum and I were very excited about, the only English things they had only the menu were macaroni cheese and french fries, but we ate it and after 3 weeks of curry it tasted pretty damn good!

For photos look at Facebook or this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=212756&id=649281828&l=b360455907

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