Periyar and Munnar

Hi everybody,

We left Varkala and caught a TERRIBLE, twisty, stomach churning car ride to Kumily. We got in pretty early so we went to go ride elephants. We took a half hour ride through a spice plantation. At first it was sort of scary because the elephant swayed side to side when it walked, and once I was afraid that it would walk of the path. Once we got used to it, it was a lot of fun. The elephant’s skin feels so weird. Though the ride was awesome, it was rather uncomfortable and I don’t think any of us will ever walk the same again. That night Mom and Dad left me and Colin to go get Ayurvedic massages. They smelled like oil for a week after it.

Kumily is right on the edge of the Periyar Tiger Preserve and the next day we went to go see it. Our plan was to go on a boat ride to see wildlife along the park’s rivers, and then take a three hour hike through the woods. While we were waiting to get on the boat a group of monkeys were running around the pavilion we were on. They were so cute and they were hilarious to watch. The boat ride itself wasn’t that great. It was mostly birds except for this one time when you could see a wild pig very far off. Colin and I had to get up early so we fell asleep on the boat. We were going to go on a hike next but it turned out that children eleven and under weren’t allowed. Instead we toured a spice/fruit/ medicinal plant plantation. I never knew that pineapples grew on these really weird looking bushes. We got to try these weird fruits called egg fruits and rose apples. Our last stop was a view point three thousand feet up looking over the state of Tamil Nadu. It was pretty amazing.

The next day we caught another horrible car ride to Munnar. Munnar is incredibly green compared to the rest of India because it’s covered in tea fields. While there we went to a tea museum. It was interesting and they gave us these really good tea samples that converted Colin and I to tea. We also went to Eravikulam National Park. The Indians have a very different idea of what national parks should be like. There is one big, paved, path that you can walk up for half an hour before being forced to turn around and walk back down the same path. Along the path there were a ton of wild goats that came so close you could touch them. I’m ending this post here and continuing in the next post.

Goodbye