Mar 29 – Spices and Wildlife

More photos of the hotel grounds, both from the night before and this morning before we left.  Loved this place.

 

As we headed down the hill we saw tables set up with hundreds of cups.  And then we came upon a procession.  A very large number of celebrants, led by leaders holding a cross, were heading up the hill, apparently for Good Friday Services.  The procession stretched for probably a quarter mile or more. 

Our first stop was a spice plantation where we were given a tour.  Items we saw:

Arabia Coffee

Birds Eye Chili (tiny and supposedly extremely hot)

Bitter Melon

Cacao (chocolate)

Cardamom (An interesting plant.  It is tall with long, thin leaves.  The cardamom seeds are found on small viny tendrils at the bottom of the plant.)

Cloves

An interesting fern

Indian Fig

Jackfruit (World's largest tree fruit with the fruits weighing up to 120 pounds)

Medicinal Bananas

Nutmeg...

and it’s red coating that is a separate spice, Mace

Pepper

Tapioca (We use it to make pudding.  They use it to make chips and also serve it like potatoes.)

Turmeric

Water Lettuce

And, of course, they had a shop.  But we didn’t buy anything.

Then it was on to Periyar National Park and Tiger Reserve.  They have some tigers here but they are seldom seen. Tara says they don’t really have tigers …it’s just to draw people to visit.  But the guide said there had been a tiger sighting last week.   

There were monkeys in the area.  Scared a little girl half out of her wits when one jumped her. 

We boarded a boat for a boat safari through the lake here.  The cruise was relaxing and the scenery pretty

The best part was that we saw a fair amount of wildlife. 

Water Buffalo (we thought we saw a lot of water buffalo but turns out most were Gaurs...they have the beige/tan legs while the buffalo's are black)

Gaur (wild, undomesticated cow that look like boulders on legs)

Lots of Sambar Deer

A Nilgiri Langur (a dark brown primate with golden brown fir on its head.  Found only in the Western Ghats).  He was pretty buried in the branches of a tree but we could still see him...could even make out his very long, black tail.

And the special treat...lots of elephants.  We saw several families of elephants.  Those were probably our favorite sightings.

There were also some cormorants and egrets but they were too far away to get a decent photo. 

This group of monkeys were on the rooftop of the nearby bus stop.

In the evening at the hotel we could hear the cicadas singing.  They would make a lot of racket and then quiet down.  Then start again.  Interesting.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a roadside vendor where Tara bought two small watermelons.  She was craving the fruit.  For dinner that night she ate an entire watermelon (minus the three pieces that we ate).