Periyar - Hide n' Seek with elephants

Trip Start Oct 07, 2007
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Trip End ??? ??, 2008


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Wednesday, January 9, 2008

When we arrive in Kumily, the little town beside Periyar National park Jonathan isn't feeling too well.  Next day I drag him to the doctor who diagnoses a bacterial infection and gives him enough drugs to open a pharmacy.  4 days of rest and inactivity are enough to see him back to near perfect health and we finally get to see a few things about the town. 

First day better we rent bikes and head off to do a tour of a spice garden.  It's pretty good fun and we're in our element now that we've found a tourist attraction that revolves about food!  Very educational - who knew that there's actually an All Spice plant or that tumeric is good for mosquito bites??

Next day Jono's feeling well enough to tackle the park itself.  Unfortunately I've somehow managed to pick up some sort of vomitting bug and ain't feeling to hot bamboo rafting
bamboo rafting
 .  Since we've already paid for a guided trek and I enjoy playing the martyr we decide to go ahead with it.  Thankfully the only other people on the trek are a bunch of rather unfit Swedes so the pace is leisurely.  Not leisurely enough to stop me having to make a dash for the bushes during breakfast but the scenery and wildlife make up for it.

Well okay, maybe not the wildlife.  The most spectacular animals we see are wild bison and that's a bit like looking at a herd of cattle in the fields back home.  The elephants aren't cooperating despite all the thrashing around the undergrowth the guides do to try and find them.  At one stage they point excitedly to something but we're somewhat disappointed to find the source of excitment is a tree waving - apparently it's an elephant shaking it - hmmm!

Next day we go bamboo rafting in the park and it's Jono's turn to get a taste of treking with the vomitting bug!  It gets rather exciting at breakfast time when his barfing in the bushes is mistaken for a mating call and we hear the roar of a sloth bear.  Pretty scary actually - I certainly quit playing nurse pretty quickly!  Still no elephants but we see more bison, wild boars and lots of monkeys.  The bamboo rafting is fun too even if it's hard work - a lot of the group seem to think the raft is self-propelled and the oars are just for photo-ops!

So after our two days in the park we decide to give up on the elephants and tigers and say a fond farewell to Kumily.
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