Periyar

Next destination the wildlife sanctuary of Periyar on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. This was a winding five hour bus ride up into the mountians in an area famed for its tea estates and abundance of spice gardens.

This rather unhealthy looking guy is apparently a saint from Varkala. He came up with us.

We could not miss an opportunity to see the gardens so immediately went on a shiny shiny spice tour. Being slightly sad and food-obsessed we loved it and made highly improbable plans to grow, amongst others, pineapple peppercorns, and papaya. Considering the state of our current houseplants and one sad basil-maintenance attempt, this is unlikely to work out.

Men picking pepper. Peter picked a peck of pickled pep........

This has nothing to do with Periyar but we have been bowled over by the vast array of mainly government sponsored advice available in Inida. It seems everywhere you go there is some little gem... And its true, accidents do hurt.

Immediately we were assailed by Periyar's diverse array of wild animal. I think they call this one a cow. A rare sight in India. We were lucky to see it.

Next a pig- viewed over the back wall of our hotel no less.

We settled in for the night with a bottle of Kingfisher on ice and looked at the pig. Looks pretty much like Ruby I think, but then so does the cow.

Above was our jungle hut. Not the cleanest (in fact pretty skanky, made you itch) but the artwork was cool. Check the buxom milkers.


The next day we hired bikes and cycled through the park to take the boat ride around the encloure. But we missed it. With limited cycling areas (in case of tiger attack) we located one of the (less written about) in-park hotels - complete with beer parlour!

Not the most charismatic setting, and unlikely to see any live thing in here (humans included) we took our beers outside.

Me taking the Royal Challenge. Mission accomplished.

Alex recording the local flora.

The local flora.

And fauna.

The next morning we tried again to catch the boat and got to have breakfast with the monkeys. Or more like the monkeys got to have our breakfast.

Eventually we did get to see some of the fabled wild elephants but unfortunately for us it was 100% butt.

Allegedly the real thing....

Apparently we spotted a tiger on our tour but it could have been a rock. Hard to tell...
This sticks were cool though!