We made our way to the Periyar National park area via a 2hr boat ride and then a 5hr car ride through the mountains. The scenery was fantastic ! Great big mountains and the low level clouds were blanketing them. You would see the occational church or village nestled in the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
Our hotel is pretty swanky...not what I expected.
After settling into the hotel, we went to Abraham's Spice Garded (listed in the Lonely Planet 2005 guide !). The garden was started by Abraham's grandfather and the family has been running it ever since. It was really neat to see how some of the spices grow...the cardamom plant was interesting...not what I expected. The pods grow at the base of the tree. There were lot's of other plants...too many to really remember/list. They made dinner for us that was made with spices from the garden. Really good !
The Periyar park area is a major attraction so there's been a lot of effort to develop the area as a tourism attraction. Neil and I went for a beer last night at a local bar...really nice and cozy place. We played chess with the bartender...he's pretty good, made me think really hard.
I also chatted with the hotel accountant Rakesh. He hangs out at the bar after his day is done and interacts with the tourists...nice fellow.
This morning we got up pretty early to go trekking through the park. It was a really nice walk of about 3-4hrs. We hoped to see some elephants and other wildlife, but it didn't really work out. We saw some howler monkeys in the trees at one point, but they were too far away to really appreciate them. Other than that, I really enjoyed the walk...the scenery was great and I got some neat pictures of the local plants.
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