The Original Harmony

Thursday:
We got up early to go to the Periyar tiger reserve in Thekkady. On the way in we spotted wild chickens, sambar deer, bison, and malabar giant squirrels (pictured; it is hard to tell in the picture, but they are a little larger than a cat). After about an hour we found ourselves at the Gavi eco-retreat. After a quick breakfast our guide, Bala, took us across a lake for a 3 hour trek. A few minutes in we ran into some British girls and their guide. For the next 10 minutes or so we kept some distance, checking out the plants and animals in the rain forest (more squirrels, cinnamon trees, frankensence,  mynas, etc), when the other guide spotted some elephants.

We spent the next half hour or so tracking the elephants, a mother and child, until they got too far off the trail. Next thing we knew we were quickly stalking through the dense underbrush, stopping every once and a while to hear breaking bamboo, look for rustling trees and pick off the leeches that we picked up along the way (land leeches). After a while we had caught back up with them. While we never had a clear view we were eventually close enough to see them through the trees. We watched for some time then moved on.

In just a few minutes more, we found three more elephants including a bull. Again no clear view, but close enough to make out trunks and tusks.

Later we had lunch, went for a nice boat ride and then another short trek to a viewpoint overlooking some grasslands. On the jeep ride out we got to see one more animal, a Nilgiri Langur.

After some short rest at the hotel we went out to see a cultural dance demo, very different, pretty interesting.