Thekkady

Date arrived: 6th January  2024

Date Departed: 10th January 2024 (Planned)

Favourite sight: Dragonfly - vs - Spider

Average Cost: £27 PPPD - excluding Periyar trek

The town of Thekkady is very close to Kumily, and the two names are ofter interchanged with each other and also Periyar, the name of the national park that abutts them. On the far- eastern boundary of Kerala, this reserve centres around a man-made lake created in the late 1800s by the British, and was once a game hunting area. It is now a reserve for the protection of the same animals. It's also a bit of a pig to get to, with no railways and some very windy roads!

6th January 2024

As Kutty dropped us off right outside Chrissie's Hotel in Thekkady, we were greeted by Adel, the Egyptian half of the German-Egyption couple that run this lovely little hotel. We found our way to our room, which had a fabulous mural of the tea plantations we'd been driving through for most of the day, and then set out to get some lunch at the nearby Spice Garden restaurant. We also did a brief lap of the town centre, taking in the fantastic wild Bamboo grove that forms the northern edge of the Periyar National Park, bordering the town. At this point we opted to take dinner at Chrissie's cafe, in the hotel. We also met up with Adel again and booked a National Park walk and bamboo rafting trip for a couple of days time.

7th January 2024

Breakfast at Chrissie's was a combination of Indian breads and curries, with home made bread and toast, and was really nice. After breakfast we decided to go to one of the town's several spice gardens, where you can see various different herbs and spices gowing and learn about them. We walked around 2.5KM to the Green Park spice garden, where we paid 100 rupees each to have an approx 20 minute tour from an excceedingly knowledgable chap with excellent English.

We also visited their shop and bought some Veg Massala mix (to try when we get home) as well as some good value Vanilla essence - for use in Julie's home made granola.

After a good walk back, and around the town centre, we found a small and simple restaurant where we ate a really good Massala Dosa. We also sussed out the bus station ahead of our planned attempt at using the bus to get down to Kottayam later in the week.

For dinner that evening we headed out to Grandma's cafe, which we had heard would serve us beer, if we asked nicely. Ever prepared to ask nicely, we ended up having a really nice dinner, accompanied by a ubiquitous bottle of Kingfisher!

As we settled in for the night back at Chrissie's, we heard the heavens open, and heavy rainfall lashing down around us, which was slightly worrying given our planned trek the following day.

8th January

Today was our walk and raft trip in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, which meant an early start as we had to be down at the boat jetty and ready for departure by 8AM. Now as the boat jetty involved a walk and a bus-ride to get there, we had to leave Chrissies's promptly at 7.15. They very kindly put on some toast and coffee for us, as this was well before breakfast would normally begin.

As we alighted from the bus inside the reserve, we spotted an English couple that we'd seen the night before in Grandma's, and got chatting to them. Laura and Jim turned out to be from Washington in the North East, and were spending 8 days in India in the midst of a Sri-Lanka trip. We nattered with them quite a lot as we carried on with the hike!

The first part of the day was being furnished with our equipment, which included a pair of heavy cotton gaiters/socks, to be worn inside our shoes but over our trousers. These were to provent leeches from getting inside our socks! As I'd already been leeched once in Munnar, I was quite grateful for them. Depite this protection, we spent a lot of time over the next six hours flicking wriggling leeches off our socks and shoes! We were also given a small rucksack containing an insulated Tiffin box, which housed our breakfast and lunch for the day, and some fruit and water.

Expectations were set early that, with the time of day and recent heavy rainfall, it was unlikely we would see many animals that day. This had been our expectation when booking the trip in fairness, and maatched the experience of the couple we'd met in Munnar who had recommended this trip.

The trek started by crossing a narrow part of the reservoir at the heart of the national park, using a small bamboo raft that was pulled across on a rope. Our group of 8 tourists and 4 guides (one armed with a rifle) completed this in two shifts, before setting off into the forest. As expected, we didn't see many animals, but we saw some very cool plant life - including monster vines, and cannibal trees that were literally eating other trees whole!

We also saw a few birds and, memorably, a beautiful butterfly trapped in a spider's web, struggling to get free.

A highlight of the trip was when our very knowledgable guide pointed out a large dragonfly resting on a branch. As he did so, his shadow fell over the dragonfly, which leaped into the air and flew... straight into a spider's web. The unlucky flier managed to land within inches of the web's owner, a vicious looking yellow and black monster with long spikey-looking legs, which was on the captive in seconds! This was incredible to watch - the cycle of nature in action, right in front of us.

We stopped on an area of flat rocks where we are the first layer of our tiffin box - breakfast - which comprised a simple sandwich. After breakfast we walked a bit further until we reached the lake, where we boarded our bamboo rafts. In a very indian manner, we first paddled across several hundred metres of lake to a nearby camping space to collect some life jackets to wear, before having a leisurely paddle further up the lake to enjoy our lunch.

After lunch we paddled back to the camping space to drop off the life jackets, before re-crossing the remaining 200M of lake without them. Of course.

Walking back through the jungle after our rafting, we did see both some wild boar and buffalo in the distance, as well as a few monkeys and a pair of indian giant squirrels in the trees overhead. Our sharp-eyed guide also spotted a pair of sleeping owls - apparently very rare - deep inside a bush, and we managed to get a few snaps of the tiny birds, with the brown coloured male looking like nothing more obvious than a leaf! The pink plumed female was a little bit easier to spot once pointed out!

Overall our trekking and rafting experience made for a really good day, with good company from the British couple, but also some good natured and entertaining Americans alongside as well. The best thing was that the rain held off until the last few minutes, and we all remained pretty much dry all day!

9th January

The rain holding off is more than could be said for today! The short version is that we spent the day in the hotel, catching up on a bit of website work and doing a some trip planning, while the heavens opened overhead. We did meeet another English couple today - Louise and Michael - who hailed from Danby in the Yorkshire Dales. We chatted with them a bit over breakfast, and then joined them for dinner where we enjoyed a couple of beers at Grandma's once again!

Apart from this, the highlght of the day was a trip to the ATM!

10th January

Today we bid adieu to Chrissie's and Thekkady, taking our first proper bus trip in India, for three and a half hours, back towards the coast once again. We were a little delayed in setting off due to our washing coing back from the laundry a bit damp, but that was no surprise given the epic fainfall of the day before. Nothing that couldn't be handled by borrowing a couple of hair dryers from reception!

Armed with pastries from a shop by the bus station, we boarded the knackered looking, windowless bus (they all were) with some slight trepidation. Kerala Backwaters here we come!