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  Thekkadi - Periyar, India
Sunday, January 2, 2005

We left our very sparse room at 6.30am to meet our 'fixer' who had got us seats on the morning boat around the dam-created lake in Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The many Indian visitors chatted and rustled their breakfast bags loudly as we glided across the smooth surface of the lake, whilst the foreigners amongst us tutted disapprovingly. Any chance of seeing any wildlife drinking on the banks of the lake or wandering out of the thick forest was unlikely with all this noise! So after an hour, we came back to shore having spotted no elephants, no deer, nothing except a couple of monkeys, some birds and two otters (which I suppose is rare).

We invited Hari to join us for breakfast at Chrissy's - he seemed a little unsure about this (fraternising with the customers) but whilst Debbie and I munched on peanut butter toast, he stuck to a cup of chai (the only Indian thing on the menu!)

Periyar lake

. For him, we are seriously rich, he probably earns about 60 rupees a day in peak season (about 70pence) plus our tips (a further 50-100 rupees a day). Can you imagine living off that and that's the average wage in India! He then took us to a spice garden (where he got some commission we reckon for our custom - fair enough!) and saw green pepper, cardamon, turmeric, all spice, coffee beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, curry leaves and all sort of other spices being grown - an aromatic morning. After lunch, where we met two lovely English women - Kate and Saskia (who we bumped into again in Cochin), we had an encounter with an elephant. Even though I'd already been on an elephant, I indulged Debbie's obsession with these huge creatures and spent half and hour baking in the sun parading around on the back of the elephant, whilst the local photographer tried to take our picture (we didn't buy the pictures of course!).

After some Kashmiri emporium browsing.....we had our second encounter of the day. Well Debbie went first which did prepare me a little bit. Chrissy had recommended an Ayurvedic doctor she had used in Periyar(Ayurveda is an ancient Indian practice of natural medicine, using plant and flower extracts, analysing body and energy types (doshas) and focusing on relaxation, massage, diet, and yoga). The doctor was 6th generation to practice Ayurveda from his dispensary

Un uncomfortable ride

. Chrissy had told us that we would be massaged by a lady. Well it turned out that they were not working with it being Sunday, so the Doctor did the massage himself. All I will say about the experience is that it was very very oily, in a very basic no frills environment (a wooden slab and a gas burner to heat up water for washing off the oil afterwards) and it was very thorough!!!! I did have a little loin cloth on and the doctor was very proper and correct (however he would never have been allowed to massage an Indian lady!). Unfortunately I didn't relax much as my buttocks were firmly clenched the whole time!!!!!!!

Hari was horrified when we told him. Debbie and I had a great dinner, exchanging stories of our experience!

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