elephants! spices! friends! (and maybe a leopard)

After Munnar we went 68 miles south through the mountains to the Periyar Tiger Reserve. This drive also took four hours! We stopped at a government-run organic ayurvedic garden on the way and had a tour from an ayurvedic doctor. She explained the medicinal value of all the plants and took one look at our sulky, droopy teenager and convinced me to buy several potions for him that I later regretted--the parental version of hope in a jar. Let's just say some of you may be getting super-strengthening energy-enhancing brain-boosting mood-smoothing pills as gifts.

We had booked a government-run hotel inside the tiger reserve itself, part of the summer compound of the former maharaja of Travancore, who would travel through the mountains in the summer months to escape the heat. After Independence, the state of Kerala took it over and converted it to a hotel, surrounded by a dry moat and a fence to keep out the charismatic megafauna. Sounds cool, right? Oh, also: we got the special Indian summer family deal, because we have an Indian schoolchild under 12 (we had to produce her school ID and book it in her name). Extra cool! It also looked charming in the publicity photos. Michael said he imagined it would be like the old lodge inside Yosemite.

Reader: we hated it. The pool was undergoing maintenance, so we couldn't swim. Which was bad because we had to be inside the hotel by 5 pm everyday because you couldn't be out after dark because of the wild tigers. We had thought we'd amuse ourselves after curfew by swimming, but now there was no swimming. Also: no air conditioning. But we couldn't open the windows at night for fresh air because the monkeys would come in. And we couldn't cool off in the pool before we shut ourselves in our hot, airless room because THE POOL WAS CLOSED. And I couldn't even drown my sorrows (and escape our small, airless room) at the "Beer Parlour" because THE BEER PARLOUR WAS CLOSED TOO. And we had planned to spend four nights there! Honey, no. In India the customer is definitely not always right, and they seemed pretty unconcerned about the poor service they were offering, but whatever. We canceled the last two nights. Too bad for them! They were deprived of my scintillating presence!

You might be thinking, as we were: but, you're inside the national park! Forget the pool, you dummy, get out and walk the trails! Well, the joke's on you (or actually, us), because the forest service controls the reserve and there are no open trails! Perhaps you are thinking: well, can't you hire a guide to take you on a walk, like you did in Munnar? Nope, not if there is a child in your party. Because no children under 12 are allowed to walk in the reserve. Wait, didn't I just say there was a special program to promote families with children under 12 visiting the reserve? Ha ha ha, yes! What a funny situation. It was an especially funny situation after the hotel desk clerk sent us all the way to the forest service office in town because we could only book treks there in person, only to be told by the forest service that the only activity available to families was the boat ride we'd done that morning. Hilarious! Just like this abandoned giant turtle hut.

However, it WAS cool to be inside the reserve, mostly just knowing that all these acres were set aside for birds, leopards, bears, elephants, monitor lizards, bison, and tigers. I am happy for them. We did take the boat ride on the lake, and it was beautiful, although we didn't see any exciting wildlife (except Agatha and I think we saw three wild elephant butts disappearing into the forest in the far, far distance).

 (Some people still looked at their phones a lot.)

There was a group of interestingly-dressed people on our boat. Kind of an Islamic-Mennonite mashup. Or fundamentalist-little-house-on-the-prairie? The men wore caps, plaid shirts, cargo pants, and sneakers! No Indian man I've seen wears anything like that.

And the women wore homemade, embroidered and appliqued dresses with matching gathered cape-hoods. The fabrics and motifs were very Holly Hobbie. It was very unusual.

Besides the lovely lake, the trees were beautiful. Huge, massive, and there were so many varieties.

There was one access road leading from the gate to the hotel, about 2.5 km long, and we could walk on that. It was nice to look at the trees and see the large sambar deer up close.

 And the Nilgiri langurs, a medium-sized black monkey.

As well as the very cheeky bonnet macaques (that's him on the right, below).

In the morning, Michael went for a run on the single road. It was around 7 am, as soon as curfew was lifted, and he was loping along wearing his Orange Runners t-shirt when the monkeys hooted-- they make a "hoo-hoo, haa-haa" noise just like in the cartoons!-- and he playfully hooted back. All of a sudden, off to his left, he heard a growl and roar. Like, "grrrrr-OOOWWWRRR!" And he caught two glimpses of a low, dark creature moving in the trees. He was heading home at that point and just kept running, looking back every few seconds. He thinks it was a leopard! Maybe because he was running and hooting and wearing orange the leopard was confused about what type of creature he was and felt momentarily threatened? We don't know, but it was very exciting. And a little scary. Maybe all those dumb rules about curfew and no children make a little bit of sense after all.

Anyway, we escaped the hotel and had a wonderful afternoon visit to the family home of my friend Anjumol, a colleague from the History department at St Teresa's College. It is a beautiful, typically Keralan High Range home with multiple generations living there, surrounded by a cultivated forest filled with spice plants and cash crops.

Anju's mother and sister-in-law cooked an incredible feast for us, and everyone sat watching us eat, as is the custom. Since Easter has passed and they are no longer restricting meat for Lent, there was every type of meat dish imaginable: fried beef, fried pork even!, chicken biriyani, chicken masala, fish curry, fried fish chunks, fried whole-entire-2-inch-long fish, along with tapioca (kind of like mashed potatoes), homemade pickle, and other stuff I can't remember. Then Anju and her sister-in-law took us on a spice walk in their woods.

 This is nutmeg! The nutmeg is the pit inside, but did you know you can eat the fruit? It is very astringent but tastes good.

 And a rosy, flower-shaped coating surrounds the interior pit-- this is the spice we call mace. They sell them as beautiful dried flowers in the spice markets in Kochi.

They have some dwarf coconuts, for easier picking (as well as super tall ones; they hire someone to pick those).

An elongated type of guava:

 Coffee (we drank their own coffee, from their own garden!):

 And cloves! Cloves are the flower buds of this tree. These are just ready for picking:

 And two types of tamarind, this pumpkin-shaped kind, as well as a long bean pod type:

And a lot of other things, including cardamom and pepper. Spending the afternoon with Anju's family was one of the highlights of our entire time in India. The children ran in the tropical forest and played...

... there were feats of strength and agility...

... and we so enjoyed seeing their lovely way of life. I think they are a good example of the Malayali families our trekking guide, Vimal, was telling us about-- landedness makes all the difference. They live a prosperous life with delicious food, and although their land is no larger than a suburban house lot in the US, they sell rubber, betel, and aruca nuts as cash crops.

The day we visited was election day in Kerala, so at the end of our visit we rode with them downhill to the government school that was their polling place.

The next day, foiled by the lack of trekking, we decided to go all in on the tourist activities and plump for the elephant safari. It was great! 

 We got to ride elephants up into the forest and look around at the mountain view.

And for our chief animal lover, we plumped for the bonus elephant-bathing package.

We got to scrub the elephant, and then the elephant scrubbed us (video):

Then we drove another 4.5 hours home. This trip we didn't have a Mr Prabhu; we just hired taxis along the way for each leg, and autorickshaws for local transport. We probably spent more money and wasted some time, but we didn't have to deal with the guilt of a man sleeping in his car, waiting to drive us to our next destination. For the trip home, we hired the same Uber driver who had driven us to Munnar the first day, Perumal. He told us that his love was "cinematic dance," (aka Bollywood), and that he used to teach it, but his family needed more income so now he drives Uber from 6am to 10 pm, seven days a week. Our journey home was a big payday for him, allowing him to knock off at 6:30 pm when he dropped us off rather than working late. But he still planned to be back at the wheel at 6 am the next day.

We stopped for 7-Up and crunchy snacks, our formula for getting through the twisty drives without barfing.

 All the drives had absolutely beautiful scenery, but the drive home to Kochi from Thekkady/Periyar was exceptionally gorgeous. We came down out of the mountains and into the hills and plains of rural Kerala, with its pineapple plantations, banana fields, forests, and waterways. I would love to go back and stay longer both in high-ranges Thekkady, near Anju's house, and in the rural plains.

(But I've had enough of the Tiger Reserve, thank you.)