Again through Raju, the super helpful rickshaw driver, we made arrangements to have a taxi pick us up at 6am to drive us the 40 kilometres to Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary where we hoped to have a hike in the jungle. The night before Raju said he would be our driver but alas it was his brother, Raj Kumar (or perhaps another brother-in-law...we got confused with his family as everyone we met driving a vehicle seemed to be his brother or cousin or some relation).
The drive in the early morning light was spectacular. The views of the mosaic like tea plantations covering the hills were breathtaking. It took almost 2 hours to travel the 40 some kilometres although that included a stop in a small town for a strange Indian breakfast. Just as strange to me, the area was decorated with many little flags, banners and graffiti with the hammer and sickly representing communism. It turns out that Kerala is a bit of a hot bed for communist politics due to their strong socialist beliefs.
The morning sunrise:
Naomi approving:
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
The small town we stopped at for breakfast:
My odd breakfast:
Trying to enjoy my odd breakfast:
Reaching the sanctuary, there was just a small building where we met a guide and paid our small entrance fee. The guide took us on a couple hour hike through the rocky, hilly yet partially tree covered terrain. He pointed out some of the local flora and fauna like lemon grass and a cactus tree and spotted some bison across the valley. The temperature began to climb near the end of the trek and our closest wildlife encounter happened to be a couple of deer bolting through trees as we scared them. Ironically one ran across the main road right by our starting point, the ranger’s hut and so our driver hanging out for the last few hours in his car had a better viewing of the buck than we did!
The no expenses spared ranger hut:
The start of our hike:
A cactus tree:
Some “supposed” ancient rock paintings:
A strange bug:
Naomi and the guide:
Good views:
Looking down at the river far below:
Gorgeous:
On our drive back we stopped at a bend in the road to check out some monkeys in the trees and atop a metal fence. Naomi had an open packet of potato chips and she threw down a chip to a nearby monkey but then a few of them rapidly approached her. In a slight moment of panic she dropped the bag which was immediately snatched up by one primate who scrambled up the fence to begin to devour his tasty little treat. We spent about 20 minutes checking out these curious fellows...again, ironic that our roadside viewing was better than anything we saw in the sanctuary.
Monkey action:
Cute fella:
Some grooming action:
Brothers:
Me, Raju Kumar and a sandalwood tree...very expensive stuff and so fences are erected to prevented looters:
A waterfall across the valley:
Next we stopped at Lokkam waterfalls. We were the only foreigners there, surrounded by Indian tourists frolicking in the chilly clear water. We waded in closer to the falls but weren’t tempted to climb up to the higher rocky ledge that was filled with Indian men proudly sporting their varying physiques from over buffed muscles to perfectly rounded Buddha bellies. There were more monkeys hanging about and one poor fellow had some stiff wire twisted around his stomach. It looked a bit uncomfortable but there was no way he would let anyone try and take it off for him. We found our driver at one of the tarp covered food vending stalls unwrapping the shell off of a small, multi-coloured boiled egg. Turns out it was a quail egg and there was a bowl full of them. Naomi and I decided to try one and they were quite tasty little things, so I bought some more.
Lokkam Falls:
Naomi trying to blend in:
Well worth the price of admission (10 rupees total or 20 cents):
Quail eggs:
Naomi trying out her quail egg:
I liked them so much I bought some more:
See if you can spot the wire around his tummy:
We drove back into Munnar arriving back in the early afternoon. We decided that we had to make another attempt to see elephants in the wild and according to our tuk-tuk tour guide Raju, a night safari was our best bet. His brother-in-law Sham picked us up in a jeep at 10pm and in town another fellow, Vinod, joined us. Of course he was some other relation to Sham and Raju as everyone we met seemed to be. Naomi was a bit happier that there would be two guides taking us as we didn’t want a driver falling asleep at the wheel and I had to agree with her.
Naomi and I had prepared for a chilly night and had brought a couple of blankets from JJ’s Cottage with us. We also had newly purchased toques in our bag and wore many layers of clothing. Jay, the owner of the guesthouse, told us that just last night around 10pm there was a single elephant milling about in the field about 500 meters away from where we were staying. Naomi and I had been walking near that field in search for an open restaurant (a difficult thing at that time of night in Munnar we found out) but sadly didn’t see it. That’s okay, we’ll see them tonight!
It was a bumpy ride out of town as we stopped at Vinod’s house to pick up a powerful flashlight to add in our animal spotting. We drove the same route as we had in the morning so Naomi and I were putting on some serious miles on this road. Stopping briefly for a coffee at a stand across the road from where I had the odd Indian breakfast, we carried on into the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary and the wildlife game was afoot. I had this strange expectation that the elephants were just going to walk out onto the road at any second. Well, the minutes turned into hours as we continued to drive along while scouring the vegetation with our torch.
Stopping at a bridge with an elevated view of a dried riverbed, we exited the vehicle to take a closer look. Way off in the distance we could see the reflective spots of light from the eyes of grazing deer about a kilometre away. Gee, I hope we do better than that I thought to myself. I asked Sham to turn off the noisy diesel engine of the jeep so that we could listen for night sounds. It was a good call. Within five minutes we heard not the growl, but more of a grumble from a tiger way off in the distance. Even Sham and Vinod seemed excited about it. Alright, the night is picking up.
We drove another 20 kilometres before turning back. It was almost 3am now and there was no sign of any elephants. Naomi’s excitement had waned and I was losing hope too. Unfortunately Naomi also started to feel ill from motion sickness thanks to the erratic driving so common in India. Thankfully we stopped again at the all night coffee stall and she was able to regroup a bit. Nearing Munnar we were both wide awake while our drivers seemed to be fading. We tried to engage Vinod in small chat a bit to make sure he stayed alert. The last few kilometres into Munnar are very curvy and descend down from a hillside...not a place you’d want to go over the edge!
We were back at JJ’s Cottage at 5:15am and Jay was already up to unlock a gate to let us in.
Our night safari disappointment:
The elusive elephants had won...and now it was time for bed...
No comments:
Post a Comment