Spice it up
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2006
1
32
179
Trip End
Oct 31, 2007
Kumily,
India
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
The rest of the day, being Christmas Day, was a little strange and flat
01 The honeymooners at a tea plantation
. I was surprised to find that christmas is celebrated here to some extent, so a lot of the shops and restaurants were closed and there was a hushed, slightly depressing feel to the place because there were so few people around. We felt very aware of how far we are from our families, and felt quite homesick. Particularly when we phoned them and heard about them sitting by the tree, about to open presents, drinking champagne and eating smoked salmon nibbles, to be followed later by roasted birds and christmas pudding. We're going to really enjoy christmas next year. Star Movies showed Love Actually that evening so we ended our day watching that, wallowing in our homesickness. Today we hauled ourselves out of bed at 6am in order to get to Periyar in time for the 7.30am guided trek we wanted to join. When we arrived at the entrance to the park there was already a long queue of traffic waiting to get in, and a long queue of people waiting to buy tickets. It was really chaotic, as Indian queues often are (in fact, to call them queues is often stretching fact a little too much!) and took ages to get to the front. Anyway we eventually got to the ticket windeow at 7, feeling nervous about reaching the booking office for the walk in time, and our rickshaw driver, who was supposed to meet us at the other side of the gate after we had bought our entry ticket, had disappeared. Then a bus crashed into the side of a rickshaw, blocking the road, so we decided to just walk to where we could book our trek
02 Nice exotic flower
. This took longer than we'd hoped and by the time we reached the booking office, it was too late. The walk there was also very frustrating for us, because the drivers seemed to not understand, or care, that they were driving through a wildlife sanctuary, and were driving as they normally do, hooting their horns constantly, overtaking each other, and generally being totally insensitive to the fact that there are wild animals living there, and it's supposed to be a safe haven for them, of peace and tranquility. Grrr, I think we'll be ready to leave this country in a few days' time....Anyway, having missed the early walk, we then had to wait for 4 hours before the next walk at 11, and with no guarantee of being able to get on to that one either, because the place was overrun with tourists and it seems there is a shortage of guides. Fortunately things worked out, and we met up with another 3 westerners who all wanted to do the trek and the 5 of us eventually got a guide and set off at 11, after a long, tedious morning of waiting. The walk was nice, but was really just a nature walk, rather than the wildlife viewing we had been after, and the most exciting thing we saw was a few very large nilgiri langaur monkeys. It was good to get the exercise and see some nature, but it was a bit disappointing after such a long time hanging around waiting for it, and when our expectations were quite different from what we got. Advice to other travellers who might be reading this would be, don't come to Periyar at Christmas time, and don't expect to see much wildlife. Nevertheless, it's been lovely to be out in the countryside, and the cooler weather has been a welcome respite from the heat and humidity of the rest of Kerala. (R)
