Having been gently broken into Indian life by Fort Kochi, we set off early the next day to Thekkady and Periyar National Park a 4hour drive into the hills.
There was an option to take a bus of course (a 6hour ride), but being three of us and still feeling flush at the start of the trip we decided to treat ourselves to a taxi which cost £30 total for the 4hour journey. In London you can just about get a taxi from Bayswatet to Brixton with that!
The drive was breathtaking, partly for the beautiful climbing scenery of tea plantations and spice farms but equally because of the breakneck speed we were flying round corners and overtaking with! Sitting in the front was a real life roller coaster I had to keep closing my eyes as it was too much to watch! For a while we thought maybe the bus might have been a better idea until we saw it screeching round corners too. It was our introduction to Indian driving!
The beautiful drive
After finally arriving in Thekkady alive (!) we found a "Wild hut" to stay at on the edge of the park with views over the park too for a bank breaking £7.50 a night for the three of us at Coffee Inn. It was a super basic wooden hut, and doesn't quite look like the pictures on the website, but it did the job! Apparently there were two huge cockroaches sharing the hut with us too but thank goodness I did not see them and wasn't told about them till a few weeks later!!
Vrksasana (tree pose) overlooking Periyar National Park
The town is pretty much a one street town which lives off the tourist trade to the park. Periyar is famed for being home to 35-40 tigers, although we were not lucky enough to see one, and even locals we spoke to had never seen the elusive creature, it is still a beautiful place.
The Park itself is 777sq km of land with 26 sq km man made lake in the middle created by the British in 1895. We got up early the next day to catch one of the first few boats and hopefully see some wildlife!
Periyar's lake, pretty chilled!
The boat ride round the lake is about an hour long, and although we did not see a huge amount, it was very beautiful and serene. If you do ever go there, there is a great walk back through the park to the gates which you shouldn't miss!
We found a great little place called Frenchies for lunch run by such a warm, friendly couple called Reggie & Supah. Supah fed, watered and delighted us with her stories so much so that we decided to book a cooking class with her that evening. This cooking class was one of the highlights of the trip for me - we bundled into a tuktuk with Supah and her son and set off to her little pink house! That's one of the things I love about India, all of the houses are painted bright colours - pink, orange, blue, yellow, green. Walking down the street is like walking through a rainbow and you can't not have a smile on your face.
The class was a very informal class in Supah's kitchen - we chatted and cooked and chatted and cooked. On the menu was Dahl fry, Okra masala, Aveel vegetable curry, Coconut chutney, chappati and an Indian sweet named Kesady (I will do a separate post on these, don't worry!). Supah spoke to us about life and love and gave us a fascinating insight into Indian family life.
After learning to cook this feast with Supah, we were then allowed to eat it. This was without doubt one of the best meals I had in India! I could not reccommmend Supah's cooking experience enough! It was £5 each for the whole evening and dinner too.
Supah's super smile!
We also had the chance to visit a working tea factory and spice factory nearby. The tea factory smelt amazing! We had a very jolly guide called Benny showing us round. Although Benny was clearly very knowledgeable and charming, unfortunately it was rather hard to understand him so we are still a little hazy on the whole tea making process!
Tea plantation!
Next up was the spice plantation where we saw pepper drying and being made, curry leaves, all spice, tea tree, cardamom, stevia leaves and many many more delicious spices! It was super interesting to see - especially the pepper drying and crushing process as so much work goes into it. I appreciate every sprinkle of pepper so much more now!
This lemon at the spice farm was bigger than my head!
Unfortunately we had to say our goodbye (for now - don't worry she will be back later!) to Lex here, as she sped off on Reggie's motorbike to the bus station.
The last thing we did in Thekkady was head to Elephant Junction on the recommendation of a good friend of mine who had just been. We chose to have an elephant ride, and to wash and shower the elephant. I am not always a fan of these types of places given the conditions the animals are sometimes kept in, but these elephants seemed well cared for. If you are tight on time/money I would skip the elephant ride and just do the wash and shower. Su & I thought we would just be helping to wash etc the elephants but unbeknownst to us we were going to be getting a very powerful shower ourselves!! Su went first and her face says more than any words could!
No words!
The best power shower I've ever had!
Needless to say we both ended up soaked and with big smiles on our faces! If you do ever do this make sure to take a dry change of clothes!
Next stop....The Alleppey Backwaters
xx
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