Wildlife viewing in Periyar

According to the guidebook, Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats can be a bit like Disneyland. Okay, so thankfully it wasn't that crowded, but there were still more than enough vacationing yahoos. But I digress.

We decided to head off from the peace and quiet of George Thomas's house with a 4-WD vehicle and an unknown driver that spoke no English. Some might question the intelligence of such a move, but as mentioned in our last post - life is an adventure! Truly, we had nothing to worry about as this was all arranged through George and his son-in-law Manoj. Upon our departure there seemed to be some confusion as to the direction of our destination, as our driver had to stop and and ask for directions a few times and make a u-turn or two, but after approximately 4 hours of driving (to cover about 120km!) we made it to Kumily, the small town on the park's northern edge.

On the way we passed through Erumily, a major pilgimmage stopover, and saw all kinds of festive looking folks crowding the streets with their singing and dancing. A little later, the road started some serious climbing and the hills were a welcome change in scenery. Lovely, lush and green, the foliage slowly changed from rubber and palm trees to tea plantations.

We arrived at the Mickey Homestay and were warmly greeted by Sujatha, a very lovely woman with sparkly eyes. She showed us our room, which was comfortable enough, and then we spoke to a guide that worked for the place. His English was that tricky kind composed of real English words, tacked together into vaguely recognizable sentences. For example, one of the things we wanted to do was take a boat ride at 7:00 a.m. on the lake, to see if we could spot any animals. Well, to do this, one must purchase a ticket for the park entrance, and then go into the park, and then purchase a different ticket for the boat. We had a driver, so we figured that he could take us to the gate and we'd figure the process out. Our guide said that the driver would "go too fasting. Too much pumping, pumping and jumping, jumping. Better to go with tuk tuk. It goes fastly in park". Thankfully we took his advice though we didn't quite understand it, because we never would have managed this trek on our own. First, our friendly guide lined up at 5:00 a.m. to get our ticket for the park entrance. We toddled out of bed at a lazy 5:30, took the tuk tuk at 5:45, and got to the front part of the line by 6:00 a.m. There we waited with the hordes in a big traffic jam. At shortly before 6:15, when the gates open, the engines started up. Vroom vroom, it was like being at the start of the Indy 500, except in vehicles that have engines that could barely power your lawn mower. Once the gates opened we were off! We raced up the road in the semi-darkness with the other cars, jeeps, and auto rickshaws, all vying to be at the front of the line. The road is full of booby traps - speed bumps (turns out that pumping pumping is bumping bumping) and cattle guards that I swear are set to see if we can be thrown out of our vehicles. The experienced drivers, though, know where they are and when and how much to slow down. Our driver was an excellent racer. Once we arrived at the end of the road, we ran (okay, jogged) the 500 meters or so to the boat ticket gate. There is a rodeo-style chute that you have to line up in that I kid you not, was barely shoulder width across and was completely enclosed overhead as well. There was no cutting in THAT lineup! Turns out we were #4 and #5 in the line, thanks to our good driver and our reasonable fitness.

The boat trip itself was not much to write home about, except to say that to our astonishment there was a lifejacket for each of the 150 passengers, and the crew made sure every one of us had ours tied on right. Who says safety rules are lax in India? The other point about the boat trip was that sitting right behind us was a family of a dozen assorted aunties, uncles, nieces, nephews and the family clown. See reference to "yahoos" above. I can't help but think that the noise coming from the boat did nothing to aid in the wildlife sighting. We weren't completely skunked though. We did manage to see some jungle chickens, a few grazing bison and thankfully even an elephant bathing in the lake. "Very good lucky", our guide told us later.

Another thing that Mickey Homestay helped us out with was a cooking class. For a whopping 500 rupees ($12.50) we both attended the Campfire Cafe cooking class on the evening that we arrived. There were only three of us, and we were quickly put to work. But before we could do any chopping at all, our teacher had to sharpen our rusty knives. He smacked a couple of rocks together until there were shards on a piece of bamboo, and then rubbed the knife along it until it was sharp enough to give you a nice, clean wound. Maybe the rust that comes off on the vegetables adds extra iron to your diet? Anyways, were were put to work chopping, spicing, frying, grating coconut, and my personal favorite, making parotha. It is a delicious bread that is difficult to find in Vancouver. And now, with any luck, I can make it. The recipe is as follows: 1 kg. flour, 3 glasses water, 1 spoon sugar, 1 spoon salt, and some cryptic cave-painting-type diagrams of the process. I should be able to recreate this at home, no problems, right???

Before I forget, Santa and his band of merry men made an appearance at the cooking class. We saw another appearance yesterday while walking back to our homestay and are still a little unclear on the concept. They just seem to show up, and dance around and make general noise (or is that an Indian X-mas carol?) and then go away. Odd.

Sadly, something we ate either at lunch or at the cooking class finally got to both Mark and I (Mark first and more severely) and we spent an unpleasant night sharing the bathroom. All I'll say is that Mark was happy that Indian bathrooms come with both toilet AND a bucket.

We spent a pretty low key day in Kumily after the boat ride but by 6pm we were feeling better and managed to get out to see a Kathakali performance. It's done by dancers that study for 7 years - and they have amazing control of their eyes and facial muscles. The stories are told through expressions and hand gestures only, and fortunately the evening included a great description of the storyline. I'm not sure I'd want to sit through an entire traditional performance that lasts from 7:00 pm until dawn, but an hour was quite good.

Upon our return to Pathanamthitta, we visited with the family and I "helped" (which might in fact of hindered) Leda (sp?) make chicken cutlets (deep fried meat patties) which she makes from her home and sells. I also got to go gold shopping, and it's not for the faint of heart. Sunglasses should be a requirement in those shops! So much gold!!

We left this morning and are now in Alleppey - houseboat central. Will take a punt around the canals for a few hours in the morning and then hit the road for Varkala. We'll see how it goes as far as accommodation goes. It's getting a little close to Christmas, although it hardly seems like it here. While there are X-mas stars, cakes that say Merry X-mas, and funny Santas here, it's just not quite the same......