A visit to the land of colors...: Periyar Tiger Reserve (Kumily)

Last weekend Anja and I along with six others went to Kumily, a little town outside the tiger reserve. There are supposed to be around 46 tigers in the park so we thought our chances of seeing one were pretty good. Turns out the park is humongous and that the chances were actually really low.

Two "normal" and one crazy one riding the elephant ;)

Kumily is a mountain town so the climate there is a little cooler then down at the foot of the mountains, where the farm is. When we arrived we decided to take a jeep safari although we really wanted to go on the sold out bamboo rafting day trip.The jeep safari was going to take us about 40 km. into the jungle, from there we were to go on a jungle trek, and finish with a boat trip. This was a whole day thing with everything included so we jumped on it before it also sold out. We were picked up at 530 in an open jeep and driven along paved roads for about 40 km., needles to say we were all freaking cold by the time we got there!! The road was heavily traveled and was not the jungle road I had pictured i my mind, so there was also almost no wildlife to be seen at all. Although we did see one black monkey and some large bison, but we saw far more monkeys in town than in the jungle. When we arrived at our destination shivering, we were served a nice breakfast that even included eggs :) and then it was off to our jungle trek. It is sad to say we saw even less on our trek than we did in the jeep. Although it was the first time I had ever trekked through any jungle, and the viewpoints were spectacular. The closest we came to seeing a tiger was finding tracks along the jungle trek, there was also plenty of elephant dung and other footprints. So maybe we were just the unlucky ones who did not see much activity. Even though we did not see many animals on our trip, the landscape itself was worth the trip!

On the upside we stayed at this very interesting place called Coffee Inn, although I would not recommend ordering coffee because it could easily take over an hour to get! Anja and I shared a little cabin, which we dubbed our 'Little Palace' (for about 12 bucks a night each). Directly outside our door was the border to the tiger reserve, and we saw more animals from our porch than we did on an entire day of trekking through it.We saw buffalo, bison, and a whole family of wild boars, as well as risking being raided by monkeys at anytime! There was also a place we could all sit and have beers by a fire, and a little hammock to relax in. All eight of us took the chance to indulge in western food while we were in a touristic place, the best was the nutella covered pancakes :)

Kumily is a wonderful town and I am seriously considering going back to do some bamboo rafting.

Sebastien