Monkey Mafia

Our new dentist!

The next morning we were on the go again and after another breakfast of dosa, banana and almost certainly pineapple and homemade honey, we said our farewells and got on the road at about 9-30. We learned over breakfast that the previous night’s storm was now officially being called a cyclone and it even had a name -Okhi. The local news was warning that this was going to continue to wreak havoc over Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Lakshwadeep islands for the next few days. Oh goody…but at least the news was also full of helpful tips of dos and dont’s in a cyclone (see photos)
Our next stop was Periyar and Jane had asked me what the journey to Periyar would be like. I had to confess I had no idea but I thought Periyar would be down a bit from these great heights. The weather up here was still cool and cloudy but we got some spectacular views as we set off down the same road we’d seen all the tea pickers the day before. This road was tiny and extremely downhill and bendy. To start with we drove through lots of tourist accommodation offering jeep safaris and elephant rides. But as we got lower it became more remote and for once there was little along the wayside , except jungle!
The road was fairly precarious and it soon became apparent just how much damage the cyclone had done as we saw many trees and branches down and in places these had fallen either across the road or pulled down power cables with them. I think it was lucky that we’d not been trying to do this journey the day before because by now at least, the people were busy clearing things up and making repairs. No wonder the electricity and wifi at the Rose Garden was so bad and we now felt slightly guilty that we thought they’d merely been rationing us!
After about three and a half hours we made it to Periyar. Along the way we stopped once for a brief unsavoury toilet break and bought a bag of poppadums for later. We had nothing else on our itinerary today and we were looking forward to being back in a luxury hotel, The Spice Garden. So Vaiju dropped us off and in we skipped. This place is quite a big resort but it had a slight feel of an upmarket holiday camp to it. Upon arrival we were told about the list of activities they had going on and they seemed to informatively label everything. The swimming pool looked inviting but as it was still rather damp and cloudy here and the water was cold, I decided even I wasn’t going to try it.
That afternoon we decided to have a venture into town by ourselves but there were mostly just tourist tat shops selling all the same things and at a higher price than Cochin. We did, however, enjoy shopping for gifts in the toy shack. Lucky children!
After a while we were too hot and bothered so we called it a day and returned to the enclave. Now the really good thing about this hotel is that it has a fabulous bar. It’s called ‘Woods Bar’ and is named after the Englishman who was the head ranger at Periyar Tiger Reserve back in the times when the English ruled. The room was filled with old photos of tiger hunts on elephant back and men in pith helmets etc. It had a full sized snooker table and a photo of the Duke of Kent playing on it when he had visited. Jane and I enjoyed a beer in here and met some chaps from Liverpool, via the Greek Islands, who told us about how, since they’re now retired, they spend months on end just wandering around India. It sounds great but I’m not sure that’s for me!
Later than expected because of all our chatting, Jane and enjoyed an excellent meal in the hotel’s ’50 miles around’ restaurant. The concept is that everything you eat has come from within fifty miles of the hotel. Here we ate stuffed ladies fingers (okra) and then various Keralan vegetables dishes, followed by the most delicious local pudding which was like a coconut pannacota/soufflé. Very nice indeed.
The next day we were up and ready to explore more of Periyar and we started off by having a tour of a spice garden. Not another one- I hear you say. Yes, and in fact we said the same thing but went along with it anyway as it seems it would be quite short and we didn’t want to be rude. So, off we went and met up with Sajid , our guide for the tour. It was quite a small scale garden compared to Jose’s rubber plantation but Sajid was particularly good at pointing out the medicinal benefits of all the plants. By the time we’d finished we knew what to do if we got anything from a common sore throat, arthritis, upset tummy, ladies problems and even cancer. He was a really sweet chap who showed us lovely pictures of his wife and kids and explained to us why, unlike lots of other Keralan people, he didn’t want to work abroad. He said that he loved where he worked, he didn’t want to be away from his family and he got to meet lots of people from around the world and learn from them as a guide. I don’t think you can knock his logic.
Anyway, after doing some quality shopping here (more gifts, lucky people!) we decided that we couldn’t really come to Periyar without at least visiting the tiger reserve. It seemed a bit odd that this wasn’t on our itinerary but Vaiju explained that we wouldn’t see any animals. Don’t put him in charge of sales here.
Still we decided we would just go for the boat ride, even though I’d read about it online and it sounded hellish. So we caught the little rickety bus that took us and all the Indian tourists to the boat landing. Nobody was impressed by my attempts to get them to sing my song about going to see a Tiger, especially Jane.
Once at the boat landing we were told that we would be on the 1-45 boat which meant we had an hour and 15 mins to wait. Still there were some nice seats we could relax on. Until the monkey mafia moved in. Then we spent the rest of the time being terrorised by monkeys as they sat around looking menacing and then moved in as a gang to try and grab anything they could including water bottles or your video camera. At one point I’d been sort of laughing at an Indian family braving it out when unbeknownst to me one jumped on the backpack on my back and made me very cross. They were even terrorising people in the inside bit and when Jane questioned this with the security guard, she said ‘This, monkey area.’ As if to say, they were here first, what do you want me to do about it?
Fair enough. Basically, I could not wait to get on that boat. Even though I’d been looking at it and felt it may have a few Health and Safety issues. Starting with the fact that it looked like it had been built in the 1920s and hadn’t undergone an MOT since. As soon as they announced boarding everyone rushed in an unorderly fashion to get on, even though we had numbered seats. Once on, we were all instructed to don our orange life vests and that’s how we sat for the whole one and a half hour trip. Plus , we were instructed not to stand up! I’m sure this was probably a good thing because if we had seen an elephant I’m not sure the boat would have coped with the rush of people to the left!
Needless to say, we didn’t see tigers or elephants but the Sambol deer and cormorants were rather splendid!
The day ended well, as in the rickety bus back out of the park, Jane got chatting with a nice lady who gave her her business card and offered to do our dental treatment next time we were in India.