Cardamon hills

  Kumily, Kerala, India
Thursday, February 19, 2009

We're doing things in style this time and we've hired another car and driver to take us on the next leg of our journey.  We've moved 112km south to a small town called Kumily near the Periyar Wildlife Reserve.  Got a nice spacious room at Rose Garden Home Stay for 750 rupees per night.  We've got our own balcony looking out over the lush green skyline and space to do our yoga in the mornings which had been lacking in Munnar.  Our landlady brings us tea and hot milk in the mornings and we've bought Corn Flakes, Oats & dried fruit for a healthy breakfast.

The journey here was slow as it's very hilly and the road is sometimes narrow especially when you meet buses and coaches coming the opposite way.  But never fear, we have a safe driver.  It takes about 3 hours and 20kms of the road is very bad and pot holey. We pass from tea to cardamom to jungle and back again.  Kumily is really spice central and there are many spice gardens to visit where you can see pepper, cardamon, vanilla, cinamom, cloves & all sorts growing.  

Original 1926 Tea Roasting Furnace

We visited a working tea factory which was very interesting and smelt wonderful.

We haven't ventured into the wildlife park yet and by what we've heard  from other travellers, you don't get to see too much wildlife.  We watched coach loads of partying Indians going in this morning which was noisy enough to chase anything away! It's a bit of a circus I think.  We've booked an early morning walk up in the hills tomorrow to see things from up high.

LATER..............Overall, I have to say, the wildlife park is a bit underwhelming.  The landscape is beauitful but it's far too busy to see any animals. You can take a boat trip but we heard the water level is very low at the moment so it's not really worth it.  We did the "clouds walk" early one morning which was good. We had an entertaining guide who burped and farted his way through lots of stories and songs of Hindu legend. It's a steep climb up from 800m to 1200m and you really are up in the clouds.  We climbed a cranky old metal watch tower and saw a couple of black monkies whooping and playing about in the trees.  We heard a wild elephant close by but we couldn't see it through the thick wooded jungly hillside.  Was that a tiger or a motorbike we heard rumbling in the distance (?) or was it our guide 'trumpet trousers' ?