In The Lap Of The Ghats 1

It was a squeezy windy and grimy ride up into the Western Ghats.

Ajuna was nauseous, being prone to the occasional bout of motion sickness. Frankie and I, in our nearly 2m tall glory, spent the whole journey wishing we were the size of children.

But the views as we headed east from Alleppey, and into the hills, were magnificent.

Tea fields

Another Keralan bus station

Kumily

You may never have heard of this place.

But you need to.

It's really beautiful.

A small town on the boundary of the huge Periyar National Park, Kumily is bustling, but not too much. There's great places to eat, the people are super friendly, and the whole town is surrounded by the most beautiful natural forest, full of wildlife.

Our guest house was in the outskirts, right alongside a beautiful patch of bush.

There's monkeys in them there hills. And squirrels. The view from our balcony.

Split bananas

A bruising journey. They slice and cook these guys up and sell them deep fried and crispy.

Comforting a dwarf Jesus

I like that idea

One morning Frankie and I strolled into the forest. We saw lots of forest.

Beautiful kollams, outside village homes

The best diner ever

We've been eating with our hands, like everyone else. And we make a right mess, unlike everyone else. Except for Ajuna, who seems to handle it perfectly.

At last, a doctor for me

These orange flags commemorate the dedication of a new Ram temple at Ayodhya, which is happening in a few days. The PM, and his propaganda juggernaut, are hyping it up to the max, and the local Hindu population are responding with fervour.

The problem is, the new temple has been built, with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, on the site of an important mosque, which was razed during riots in 2012.

It's an incredibly sensitive site, and Modi has positioned himself, as usual, as the champion of Hinduism, dominating all other religions in India.

But it just so happens that 14% of India's population is Muslim, which is a not-to-be-ignored 172m people, and, although the Supreme Court of India granted them another temple site 15km away, the Hindu nationalist-led government hasn't provided a brass razoo in finance to build a new mosque there.

Now isn't that a surprise.

Pilgrim buses

Reassuring

Good to see some suicide prevention attempts going on

A guy at the SIM card shop had the coolest Watermelon Jesuses.

The Western Ghats, and Kumily, are also famous for tea, coffee, and spices. They're for sale everywhere in town.

Lichen and bark, don't ask me exactly what kind

Frankie cheersing me up with his chai. I'm holding a bonda, a delicious donut-esque sorta bready pastry thingy that's not too sweet. Great with a strong chai or coffee.

Even the sun has a Keralan moustache around here

Pitch white mannequin

Divine subsidence

Holy cow

CPI political star, jumping on Che Guevara's motorcyclewagon

CPI flag, looking rather Russtic

The chipkpins were amazing

We kinldy didn't casue a fssu, because they were being so ncie about it

Bedside table wisdom. Should be on a kerchief.

Periyar National Park

The main reason we stopped up here in the Western Ghats was to check out this magnificent national park, which stretches out for almost 1,000 square kilometres, through the beautiful forested Cardamom Hills.

The best way to explore it is to take a hike, and to do that you need to take a guide.

So that's exactly what we did.

We had to wear these extremely fashionable gaters.

Beautiful bamboo forest

Herr Schniedelwutz chatting to our very own private Private, our very knowledgeable and friendly forest guide.

A local villager harvesting fruit

The forest around here is home to huge numbers of wild animals, including tigers, elephants, gaur(Indian bison), sambar (really big wild deer), sloths, and a huge array of birds and smaller mammals. But, as usual, it's difficult to see them in the thick forest.

The adventurers searching for something or other

Giant forest elder

And 2 more elders

Not long into the hike, our guide was notified that there were some elephants spotted in another area, quite a rare sighting. So we hotfooted it over there, met up with another small group of trekkers and their guide, and, after at least a half hour of quiet stalking, spotted our prey, 2 large elephants with a baby, meandering around, and munching out on trees and bushes.

As they do.

It was really magnificent to see them. One of the guides told us (twice) that the last time they were seen in this area was "six to four months ago." We were super lucky to see these magnificent beasts living completely free, in their natural environment.

But one of the guides was very jumpy though. As they had a young 'un with them, the elephants could potentially charge us, to protect it. So occasionally we had to skedaddle out of tight spaces that didn't have easy exits, and we had to stay as quiet as possible.

Try telling that to Frankie's clodhoppers.

We walked through a village burial ground. This is a recent grave. Quite a nice place to rest, if you ask me.

Given the array of potential human-killer animals in the forest, living in a small village around here is fraught with danger. Locals and their stock animals are killed every year, by tigers, elephants and the occasional other hungry or protective wild animal.

But we got out, not only alive, but totally enlivened, by the beautiful experience of being with wild ancient beasts, on their terms, and on their turf.

After that amazing experience, and after both Frankie and I had massages (he said his was one of the best held ever had, mine was just so-so), it was eventually time to leave Kumily, and head over to Tamil Nadu, a neighbouring state which covers a large chunk of southeastern India.

The bus was bopping

Frankie, Ajuna and I were afflicted with a serious case of the head wobbles, brought on by the music, and just by India.

Bad joke reactions

Beautiful greenery scenery

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Go to Part 2