Abad Green Forest Kumily

... of the other-wise jungle-filled national park. It is a beautiful place; a vast landscape, that you could easily imagine to be placed in Africa as much as here. As far as wildlife goes, we only caught glimpes of wild boar, deer, birdlife and some thieving monkeys around the tourist information area.
The highlight for us of this area was going on a Tusker Trail. We were taken to a elephant sanctuary, where we took a 30 minute ride through the ...

... stopper) but some through their arms and torso too. They had a merry band of supporters / encouragers ... St John's Ambulance might have been more appropriate, but their presence was not in evidence anywhere at the festival. Behind these men came the bench twirlers ... large men in lunghi's each with a bench resting on their shoulders. On each bench was something like a 20 foot tinsel xmas tree, covered in tinsel rosettes and trumpets. These men were not simply ...

... men in Kerala are following so we dressed up Indian style and hit the town. At the nature reserve we saw wild elephants, bison & wild boar but overall the boat ride that came highly recommended was a big dissappointment in the rain & the freezing cold. The best time of day in India is about 4:30pm when you get a lazy sunset which gives a golden tinge to everything and finally gets dark about 7:30pm.

... So we took the expensive option and visited one of the tame elephant farms and enjoyed a ride and giving a large female elephant a wash and scrub using coconut shells. Well if they are happy eating the rough ends of pineapples I am sure being scraped with half a coconut is quite therapeutic! Our taste of Keralan culture involved a Kathakali show whereby it seems to take 6 years to learn the facial mimes, 6 years to learn how to drum ...

... journey via the impressive Idukki Arch Dam which connects the hills of Kuravan and Kurathi, through the lush plantation areas of Kattapana, Vandanmedu, Puliyanmala, Anakara, down to Kumily. We reached the Periyar House Hotel within the sanctuary at 5.40pm, barely within the 6pm vehicle curfew. The journey to Thekkady which should take just four hours, took almost eight because every path leading into every jungle along the way had to be explored. Our driver must have been ...

... Ganesh up front; in most of Kerala there is usually a picture of Mary or Jesus, often with flashing LEDs around it; in this cousin's car was a monkey) We drove through gorgeous tea fields in the hill station of Vagamond. They looked a little like grape orc********ly the plants were shorter and much denser. (PIX OF TEA PLANTS) Manoj and cousin drove us to a small pine forest that the government had ...

(Jim) How is this for an art form? Kathikali is a type of theatrical performance, largely unchanged for several hundred years. It is generally based on Hindu mythology. A classic Kathikali performance will start in the afternoon and continue until dawn. (And I thought Wagner's Tristan and Isolde at the Wiener Staatsoper was endless at only six hours!) The performers do not speak. They communicate by means of mudras, twenty ...

... amp; leaves-dont know how the guy spotted her!!!We stopped at a hotel inside the park,our base for the day & got breakfast-the jeep left at nine and we strted our trek into the forest.Not before we put on these things like gators,but with full feet inside our boots to stop the leeches getting on us! After a quick boat ride to the other side of the lake into the forest we went.Boy was I glad we were wearing those sock things because the leeches were all over our ...

Before you all start shouting in uproar about how we haven't posted in a whole week and what have we been doing with ourselves etc, please be advised that we have a number of entries to insert before this one. No doubt we will get ourselves in a horrible pickle doing this and end up telling you about things we won't be doing for another four months in a ...

... the jungle that are present whether I listen or not... Bobby didn't stay on any of the trails that we crossed. Instead, we climbed pretty straight up the side of a hill winding our way through huge grass and brush, bamboo groves, and waterholes, until we reached a giant stone. Jeanne and I had some asthma problems, and after I took the inhaler, I felt a bit better. I think it was actually the elevation gain that was the most intense. We had eaten some pineapple, mango ...