S.N International Thekkady

... Today went to the park looking for tigers, saw some wild elephants from a great distance and also many monkeys and a giant squirrel the size of Wellie the cat!!! We trekked through the jungle where we were attacked by hundreds of leaches, Andrea got one on her tummy followed by major hysterics. <br><br>Tomorrow leave for Kovalam by bus, an 8hour journey, will let you know how that turns out.

... After a while, I was developing quite the friendship was my elephant, periodically patting him on the head and telling him that he just had a little bit longer then he could rest. I felt bad for him, he had been born in the same place that he was now and I can't imagine that it would be a great life to shuttle people around on your back for 25 years. I guess that I could only hope that my elephant friend was happy deep down.

... rush to the side, but we couldn't see anything and wondered if we had lost something in translation. SK later suggested that the Indian tourists might have been teasing each other to pass the time. In the end, we had to content ourselves with a few deer, wild boar, a whole bunch of birds and Cameron's turtle. Still, it was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours and the lack of big beasts didn't stop Rob from taking dozens of photos. All over India, most tourist attractions ...

... Park. They are everywhere. Vodafone's Indian marketing strategy appears to be to offer a free sign to any business that wants one. The only proviso is that it will be a big red Vodafone sign, with the business's name in small white letters in the lower right corner. Vodafone dealerships here seem to be like Amway franchises back in the U. S. Everyone has got one, but not everyone makes a living, since half of the people ...

... north..... India so far by Jack My best bit was when we arrived at Dr Pooppallys. It didn't have a pool but it didn't matter. They took our bags to our room and we made these friends Ben and Polly. We went on a canoe. Dr Pooppally would say "Lunch time", "afternoon tea time" or "dinner time". The food was nice and different. In the morning they made our breakfast and they had lovely fresh pineapple on its own and mango jam. Dr Pooppally was very nice and took us to visit his ...

... animals. Cathy and Laurell (2 americans who volenteered to work with Touchwood) old us that they went on a elephant ride and got lucky enough too see a tiger. supposedly there are only around 50 tigers left in this park. Anyway we started of by taking a goverment busride through the nationalpark. As most goverment tourist attractiones this wasn't very good. The whole way we drove on asphalt, and we only saw tame elephants, deer ...

It's been a busy few days. A long taxi journey right up into the Western Ghats (hills) took us through vast rubber tree plantations and bigger tea estates to a hotel within Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. We spotted distant otters and elephants during an evening trip on lakes within the grounds. More entertaining were the creatures with whom our boat was shared. Everyone stayed seated until the first hint of an animal sighting when ...

... top of our feet. The problem was their uncanny ability to climb under our feet where they cushioned each step with a slug-like gush. It was novel at first, and the three of us commented on how 'they weren't that bad' and 'didn't stick nearly as hard as we thought they would' while our soft spoken guide moved forward at an increasingly hard to match pace through dense and wet jungle. Eventually my asthmatic buddies were wheezing (with good reason) and dizzy and ...

... street in them thats for sure! We had dinner at a weird little place out of town run by an american and his indian wife. we ordered 3 pizzas (despite the propaganda, that was pretty much all there was on the menu!) and the whole thing ended up taking three hours! 2.5 of that were just waiting. It was all a little more presssured as we had to get back to the saree shop for a late night fitting of the blouses that were being made for us. We made it though, only just!

... the worst, and we still had 3 nights here, honking down with rain, unable to go on any trips. A decision had to be made. We would leave the next day for Trivandrum and hopefully some sunshine by the sea and had a couple of hotels in mind with swimming pools. We told the front-office manager, Thomas Noble (nice name), and felt really guilty about leaving them in the lurch because at that time there were just two couples at the resort including us. Then he came up with an idea. We ...