Kumily
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Kumily to Kodaikanal
I woke early to take a jeep safari around the perimeter of the Periya National Park with is home to tigers, elephants, leopards and other wild animals. The jeep arrived at 6 pm and we drove off towards the park passing by the largest river in Kerala. Whilst crossing a bridge over the river we spotted a kingfisher. The jeep took us off road towards the national park perimeter fence. We stopped at a number of view points where you can spot wild elephants, deer and bison. Unfortunately the early morning sun had created a haze making it difficult to spot the animals. Our guide had amazing eyesight and was…
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Kumily Day 2
Kumily is on the edge of a national park and the guest house owner organised an elephant experience for us in the morning and a tour of a spice garden and tea factory in the afternoon. We were taken to the elephant park on the outskirts of the town. It was not quite what we had expected as we thought we would be bathing elephants in the river. Instead the elephant park offered short elephant rides and the opportunity to bath the elephants in a pool. The elephants appeared to be well cared for and enjoyed being bathed. After we washed the elephant the elephant returned the favour by showering…
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Munnar to Kumily
Today I headed out to Kumily (also known as Thekkady) and Periya National Park which is a famous tiger reserve close to the Tamil Nadu border. I had company as two of the other travellers staying at the hostel where also heading to the same place: Deepak is a young north Indian student and John was a retired English guy. They both knew each other as the had volunteered at the same School for deaf and blind children outside Delhi. We met up at 7 am to catch a direct bus to Kumily. When we arrived at the bus stop we were told by the locals that there were no…
