It's just 100km from the backwaters center of Alappuzah to Periyar wildlife preserve. But it's a painful 5h bus drive! First 1 1/2 h to a connecting town and then 3 1/2 more hours; and the whole thing on a window less and shock absorbing free bus! Needless to say we pampered ourselves with a good old Tata taxi after the first 1 1/2 h bus drive! So we got there in 2 1/2 hours instead.
Nature tourism is at its infancy stage here. There is very little to do even though you are in such an amazing wilderness. We are just a mere 3 km from 40 tigers, 1000 or so elephants and a whole bunch of other wildlife and there are only a few anemic tours like a one hour boat tour on the lake, a couple or so of nature walks and a pseudo bamboo rafting (we just met 2 British gals very disappointed by it). At any time there are only no more than 10 guided tourists in the whole preserve, 6 on the Tiger trail overnight trek and 4 on the day trek.
The preserve is 1000 sq kms; there could be a few more guided hikes inside the preserve and a whole lot more around it, from village to village for example.
The elephant rides are very limited trail wise, on a fenced yard but still cool. I walked right next to the elephant while Muriel was riding it; amazing, feels like walking next to a dinosaur. For the rest, Jeep tours (thanks but your "bus tours" are enough for me!!!), massages, ayurdevic and yoga classes or dance shows, have little to do with this place.
We had called to make a reservation for the 2 day trek and of course they messed up so it was full... And there are not that many other things to do if you want to hike... Thank god they have a "hard" day trek, 13km they Ray. We are set for it for tomorrow, let's not expect too much out of it!
This is also spices and tea country. We had stopped the taxi on our way here to watch the women harvesting tea and admired the green hills covered by tea plantations.
We also visited a garden where we got so many scents! The guide kept crushing leaves one after the other, my sense of smell was quickly overwhelmed! Peppers, cardamom, curcuma, ginger, multi spice leaf, you name it!
Nature tourism is at its infancy stage here. There is very little to do even though you are in such an amazing wilderness. We are just a mere 3 km from 40 tigers, 1000 or so elephants and a whole bunch of other wildlife and there are only a few anemic tours like a one hour boat tour on the lake, a couple or so of nature walks and a pseudo bamboo rafting (we just met 2 British gals very disappointed by it). At any time there are only no more than 10 guided tourists in the whole preserve, 6 on the Tiger trail overnight trek and 4 on the day trek.
The preserve is 1000 sq kms; there could be a few more guided hikes inside the preserve and a whole lot more around it, from village to village for example.
The elephant rides are very limited trail wise, on a fenced yard but still cool. I walked right next to the elephant while Muriel was riding it; amazing, feels like walking next to a dinosaur. For the rest, Jeep tours (thanks but your "bus tours" are enough for me!!!), massages, ayurdevic and yoga classes or dance shows, have little to do with this place.
We had called to make a reservation for the 2 day trek and of course they messed up so it was full... And there are not that many other things to do if you want to hike... Thank god they have a "hard" day trek, 13km they Ray. We are set for it for tomorrow, let's not expect too much out of it!
This is also spices and tea country. We had stopped the taxi on our way here to watch the women harvesting tea and admired the green hills covered by tea plantations.
We also visited a garden where we got so many scents! The guide kept crushing leaves one after the other, my sense of smell was quickly overwhelmed! Peppers, cardamom, curcuma, ginger, multi spice leaf, you name it!
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