Rant: A tiger trek it was not. Wildlife yes. Had we known we wouldn’t have travelled here, waited 4 days for our turn on the trek, and spent 7000 rs each for 3 days 2 nights. 3 days 2 nights it was also not. More like 2 days 2 nights. 3rd morning was spent walking back the same way we came. The website doesn’t offer information about the trek and neither does the lady selling it at the eco tourism office. Nothing besides pay now now now or your place will be lost. Grrr. We had so much faith and hope for tiger. Do not come here for tigers. Our guide has worked here for 16 years and seen tigers only 5 times. 5! Come here for loads of green, and a nice forest stroll.
Rant over!
Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time overall. Just annoyed re tigers could have been rotting by Goa’s beaches yada yada.
This was what happened:
Day One
930-1230: stroll through forest en route base camp. For the first hour we could still hear tuk tuks honking on the road and tractors doing their, etc. We did see a group of deers within the first 5 minutes!
So close. So national geographic. I grew up in Singapore so the city is all I know and I still get intimidated by monkeys. This was awesomes.
We also saw the malabar squirrel. Endangered! Twas big.
Excuse me squirrel, you are so bright – no wonder you’re endangered. Please evolve. You’re gorgeous.
We saw many giant trees
Saw a black monkey glaring at us (can u see it? In the centre, tiny.)
Saw locals fishing in periyar lake. I know. It’s a wildlife reserve. Why are they fishing? Anyway. Moving on. Periyar lake is man made by the way.
Walked through lots of green
Pondered life and death
Crossed the lake on bamboo raft to our campsite
1230-3pm:
Base camp! It had a deep trench surrounding it. V safe.
Kitchen
Lunch – tapioca salad. Yummm
330-630pm stroll around base camp. For the rest of the time we basically walk out from base camp, and return, and walk a different route next time. We thought we would be roughing it out and camping out there, go deeper into the forest, getting more wild. Nah.
Saw a few bisons! So large. Not my idea of bisons tho. Thought they were… Furrier.
Went to the top of a hill to spot tigers
Instead we saw 2 wild elephants nom noming in the distance. Couldn’t capture it with my measly canon S95.
Night time fell about 640. Completely dark by 7. We had a lovely thali dinner. 3 types of vegetables, dal and papadums. They served us hot tea all the time. Lovely. It was 5 star camp treatment! Warm sleeping bags. Camp fire built every night. Not once was I bitten by mosquitoes the whole time! Fireflies at night 🙂
At 1am the guide woke us up – a wild elephant had come right up to our camp to eat leftovers they left outside! SO COOL.
Day Two
Sun starts to wake up about 6am.
I was up by then. The lake was shrouded in mist. Lovely. Absolutely lovely. My camera just makes it look gloomy. Lake totally still. Happy birds, cool cool air.
7am: tea, bananas, biscuits.
8-1030am: forest stroll.
Didn’t see much. Saw a gigantic spider
That’s the female. The male is a small orange spider about 1/8 its size. Wow. Girl power.
Had a couple of massive hornbills flap away from a tree towering over us! Kerela’s bird. Yellow hornbills. They looked way happier and healthier than the dull coloured ones in the Singapore zoo 😦 don’t believe in zoos very much. Zoos are only happy places for birds and monkeys.
Visited a small fishing community.
This is how they dry out their small fish – fire lit underneath, fish on black surface, left to dry.
1030-3 pm: came back to base camp, had breakfast served to us at 11! Lovely channa masala and pani poori. Very yummy. But we had so much time to kill. 130pm lunch was served. Couldn’t eat much at all. Lazed by the lake on the bamboo raft and napped.
3-6pm: last stroll. Saw more bison, deer, mongoose scampering away, colourful parrots and various birds. Squished through plenty of mud. Reminded me of We are Going on a Bear Hunt. Mud! Thick oozy mud. We can’t go over it, we can’t o under it, we’ll have to go through it, squelch squerch squelch squerch. (from memory. Mummies reading this forgive me if I’m wrong!)
That night, we had another visitor check out the scraps – a porcupine! Whoa! How cool is that?! It was so big! Like a Chow Chow. They kept telling me to be quiet but I was so very surprised and amused to see it. It was right up close!
Day Three
Breakfast sleepy Chris style:
We didn’t go for a morning stroll. Just woke up, enjoyed the morning, left for the same route we came on the first day about 9am.
But not before we saw… An elephant playing on the opposite side of the lake!
It’s that small brown/black dot right by the bank. They coat themselves in mud to protect against honey bees.
The bamboo raft
Our gorgeous shoes. It looks better than it was. Chris’s shoes were truly screwed.
Thank goodness for the leech socks they gave us. Leeches aplenty. They were gross. Pools of leeches everywhere!
Last picture. Trek ended 3rd day at 1030am.
Picture lacks Aneesh, our gunman. Don’t know why they needed this entourage take care of just the 2 of us. They were good though, and like Kumujon said, “your luck and my maximum try.”
Cherry Red Shoes 