The next day it was time to leave our lovely hotel Malabar House and we had an early departure at 6.30am. This was because we were keen to see the elephants being washed in the river on the way to our next stop. Joyce and Enid had seen this and their pictures were fabulous but when I looked it up in the internet I found out that the elephant camp had moved and it was doubtful that they still did the river bathing at the new camp.
Still our travel agents arranged for this saying that we needed to be there for 7.30am, hence the early start. Vaiju drove us all the way out of the city past the airport again and then on gradually more and more remote roads. It took about two hours to get there and near the end Vaiju had to keep stopping and asking the locals ‘Elephants?’ and they generally pointed down the road. It didn’t look like the locals had seen too many foreigners down here before…hm.
So we arrived on time at the Kodanad Elephant camp. It didn’t actually open until 8am so we waited whilst a few people slouched up for work. We were needless to say the ONLY people waiting to go in. Vaiju sort of directed us in and there was no further instruction to be had, other than we could visit the Butterfly Garden, the Deer Park and then the Elephant camp. It all seemed rather odd and I asked ‘Are the elephants just in here? Are they behind a wall of some sort?’ Vaiju never really answered that but encouraged us in by ourselves.
So first we walked through the butterfly garden which wasn’t very impressive. All very interesting but we decided it was time to go and see the big stuff so we carried on up a track. After a while we came to said Elephant camp where I suppose there was some sort of washing going on. There were just 4-5 very sad looking elephants chained up and their mahouts were either brushing up around them, cleaning up their dung or one was hosing down the ground around his elephant. I’m sure the elephants have been rescued from far worse conditions but they were swaying backwards and forwards so it was rather distressing. We decided to make a swift exit.
Our other stop today was the famous Thattekad Bird Sanctuary. Our tour notes describe this as having a rich variety of forest and water birds. Once again we appeared to be the only people visiting but it was still quite early. It didn’t start promisingly though when we were first directed to some small cages and told that there was a peacock in there. Even better there was a King Cobra in another cage…those of you who know Jane will know that this is never going to be top of her must see list! It was all very poor and sad especially the porcupine who was also in a cage. We didn’t even realise it was a porcupine , as I told Jane ‘There’s some sort of animal in here but it’s sick or I think it may even be dead’. We quickly decided to move on and visit their butterfly garden. This was more impressive with lots of lovely flowers and indeed butterflies. The nice lady showed us some chrysalis too.
Next we moved on to try and find some birdlife but there was no map or clue as to where we ought to go so we wandered around aimlessly in the heat and humidity. We found a bit of a dried up lake and riverbed where the sign said ‘Boating’ but by the look of the boats, which were about 12 feet above any water , I don’t think anyone had been boating here since the 70s. And of course there was not a single bird to be seen anywhere! So disappointed we made our way back to the car via the cages where by now some monkeys were entertaining the local tourists. We also decided to make use of their ‘facilities’ which left a bit to be desired.
After this second v poor experience of the day we then drove onto our Homestay, the Mundackal Estate. This was really, really remote and again Vaiju had trouble finding it. In the end it was about a mile from any sort of road up a bumpy stone track through the rubber plantation. However, when we arrived the house was stunning with beautifully manicured gardens and we were greeted by the lovely Jose, his wife Daisy and there son George. Once again, all Indian but with I guess Keralan Christian names. Our room here was fairly basic but lovely and air conditioned. We ate a massive lunch prepared by Daisy and then had a rest. At 4pm we met the other guests who were staying here , Americans Cynthia and Janet, sisters from Boston and California. We all got taken on a guided tour of the estate by Jose. It was great seeing everything they grew from ginger, coconuts, yams, guava, bananas, pineapple, nutmeg, cinnamon, peppercorns, chillis, curry plant, tapioca, mangos, cocoa and coffee to name a few. He was also very entertaining so we had great fun. It was beginning to get dark as we visited, in his truck, the best bit which were the rubber trees and here we learned how they tap the trees, collect the latex, take it back to the processing plant, put it through a mangle to remove all the water and finally smoke it. The buildings this was done in were really, really old fashioned as was the equipment he used. At one point the mangle stopped (it was electric) and I just knew that to fix it Jose would take a spanner to it and hit the cogs hard. He didn’t let me down but sadly he couldn’t get it to work.
After this we went back to the house and then ate another fine meal which included lots of ingredients from the garden. All delicious! Then we got chatting to the Americans , so much so that at one point Jose turned the lights off and we took that as our cue to go to bed. The day had improved no end!
Where shall we go to next? 