I am sitting on our tree house balcony listening to the the sounds of the forest at night whilst I write this, a recommended way to prepare for bed!

We arrived at our present homestay (Monsoon Retreats) a few nights back. It is a collection of 5 huts elevated within the jungle. Birdsong of 40-50 species is the one reliable sound here round the clock. We are learning to spot the bird species endemic here including some really rare ones. The owner, Subish, is passionate about conservation of the land here and grew up in the nearby Periyar reserve himself. Pretty much all the spices and many vegetables we eat at dinner are grown on the land around. Subish has been a great source of all sorts of information here and has facilitated lots of local contacts for us so we feel we have really enjoyed a very authentic experience which has fed directly back into the local economy.

We are absolutely loving our time here, thanks to it’s small size , the accommodation is homely and intimate. We deal directly with the family that own it but often just also sit down and chat together with them. Subish’s mum has been tailoring her chilli inclusion to the boy’s palates so the boys can also enjoy her food. She seems to enjoy watching them grossly overstepping their chapati quota whilst eating her tasty food heartily with their resounding cries of ‘THIS is Delicious!’. We have been very very well looked after here by Subish and his family in all matters, tourism, transport, health and food!

We have really enjoyed walking most places, being greeted by most folk we pass. It is not uncommon for passing folk and especially kids, to strike up a friendly conversation. All other visitors we come across on our little outings  agree that there is something quite lovely about this part of India, the ambience, the friendliness, the warmth.

A couple of days ago we went elephant riding, I could travel for days like this, I felt very Royal up high, slow, gentle and steady. The same day we had a local spice plantation tour. It was really incredible, it turned out that Suben, our guide was actually trained as a corporate lawyer but had decided to live the good life here in Thekkady. Clearly he would have been wasted in corporate law as we learned an amazing amount from him about plants and sustainability and how the people here live. It seems there is a plant for pretty much every illness. He even generates his own bio-gas from cow dung.

Yesterday was especially special. We were picked up by Suggie in his Mahindra Jeep at 5 am for a whole day Safari in the Periyar. Suggie is a local guy, knows his flora and fauna and knows the park like the back of his hand. We traveled ~70km through the park across much of the varied and stunning scenery it presents over the course of the day. Thanks to Suggie’s sharp ears and eyes we spotted wild elephants, wild foxes, a leopard cat (incredibly rare), snakes, the great Indian horn bill, black monkeys and white monkeys, gaur (wow!), sambhar, giant red and black Indian squirrel, huge wasp/bee hives. We learnt how to track wild elephants (basically a question of poo!) and other wild things. To give us and Suggie a break from the animal spotting we stopped off at the pamba river for a bit of boating in the mid-afternoon. This was fun, it’s always lovely to get out onto the water in a self propelled receptacle! We also rowed ourselves about, but still had to carry our paid for ‘guide/rower’. When they did row they had a stroke (it went ‘splish,splash’), I have never seen before and probably an adaptation to maintain stamina whilst rowing about large tourists!  The other added bonus to our Safari is that 2 guests at Monsoon Retreats Vamsi and Satya, joined us for the day and it made the Safari all the more fun.

Our last full day will likely be spent more lazily doing some school work and a stroll to Lake Periyar from the Kumily forest gate.