Thekkady and looking for Elephants

On to Thekkady in the Western Ghats 

- the mountains between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Searching for cooler air and wild elephants.

Just before we left Varkala it rained - The road became a river for a short while

There in the top middle a snake! Huge!
Not an elephant but a big snake at least

A turtle at least - on a periyar stump

waterfall - given up on elephants

Water fall, different angle. on the Periyar river.

Clare decided eventually that there was no way she was going to see a wild elephant here in Periyar. We had a national strike against us which meant that all public transport came to a halt and all public servants were off work for 2 of the days we were at the park. We had taken a taxi from Varkala up to the park and the driver had warned us that he would not be able to return to Varkala for at least 2 days and that we would have to walk everywhere. He and all ricksha drivers, taxi drivers, ticket office workers were really on edge about the strike and seemed terrified of being attacked by militants enforcing the strike. Our taxi driver - Samu - was not happy at all when we arrived at the hotel we had booked to find it had no secure parking - in fact he insisted we moved to a hotel with gates that locked to protect his bosses car. We did, for him - this hotel had good driver facilities too - beds, showers, food - so worked out well for him and therefore us! Driver power...

So we had to walk into the park, no jeeps were running - it was rather lovely but meant we couldn't really get far enough in to see much wildlife. I was happy looking at the trees - these have become an bit of an obsession for me and was wildly excited to find all trees in one very long avenue labelled with latin name, Hindi name, and a short story about all of them! I think I have learnt some of them. I can look at the road side trees now and occassionally I recognise one or two. The diversity of trees in the South is huge with the Western Ghats having as many as 200 species per hectare. I hope to be seeing my rather gorgeous contact at Kew Gardens in London - soon to see if there are any courses on offer!

an example!

Indian Coral Tree

I'm afraid I lost my mates at this point, they strode on ahead looking for elephants, as I took photos of the trees.

We eventually took a boat ride into the strangely spooky lake, remnants of a by-gone forest stick out of the water, stumps now used as bird pirches. Periyar lake was an engineering project of the British Raj. It was completed at the end of the 1895 and diverted some water from the Periyar river to drought prone Tamil Nadu. It was an amazing project fraught with difficulties, not least the wilderness, ferocious tigers and marauding elephants. The mountains were dug out and huge pipes used to carry the river water to the edge of the high peaks and then steeply down onto the Tamil Plain. We saw these pipes on our journey down the steep cliff road to the plane in a bus - there are four, still huge and impressive.

Periyar river on the far side of the dam. It heads downhill steeply from here. Lovely waterfalls on route.  When the dam is opened the river is quite dangerous we were told - and the timings of this unpredictable. I wandered off looking at trees again and was shouted at to stay close by our guide - fat lot of good he would have been if a head of water was heading towards us.

I am told that the hole for these pipe was dug from two side of the mountains and on the first dig they failed to meet at the join! I can imagine the feeling - new funds had to be found but the engineer was determined and the dam completed. Today there are problems between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over control and safety of the dam, and the validity and fairness of the lease arrangement continue to be point of conflict between the two states.

Indian Darter on a stump.

Happy tourists on the boat in Periyar lake

The following day we hired bikes and that was fun - we made sure Clare had brakes this time. We haired off to some spice plantations - the roads were empty of richshas, taxis, cars and buses. Only the cows, buffalo, dogs, bikes, stall carts and people to contend with. And of course we bought spices which we have all sent home to delight our friends and family. The fresh aromas were quite yummy, pepper, cardamon, cinnamon, vanilla pods, nutmeg and some local tea and coffee.

Amber and Bo checking out the coffee drying on the roof 

Bo checking out the serial acrobatic potential of a bamboo ladder