Thekkady - Periyar National Park

Road to Thekkady from Munnar was amazing. Apparently lot of movie shootings have happened in this area e.g. Chennai Express, Life Of Pi. The view was very scenic and we (read - Meghana) were tempted to stop every now and then. 

Thanks to our driver, he took us to a tea garden area, where we could get in and do some photo shooting. Shedding all the inhibitions to express the love in the tea gardens, we managed to capture some of the poses too.





Not wanting to be left behind, Mrunmay also mimicked us showing the love signs that he knew and then posing like a movie star!!



While we were lost in each other, nature's beauty was still calling us and Meghana managed to capture this snap, way better than Windows XP wallpaper for ages!


In the initial parts we could see the green carpet on both sides of the roads, which slowly changed as we went away from Munnar. The Tea gardens were replaced with tall trees interspersed with various spice trees. 

We started early - relatively - considering it was a vacation - intending to reach Thekkady around 1 PM. There's a boat safari in the Periyar River which starts at 3:30 and lasts for about 90 mins. We were hoping to catch the safari well in time. However, even after good attempt, we couldn't make it in time. By the time we reached there, the ride was full. Our fellow driver had told us about online booking, which costs thrice as much, but we had opted to avoid this additional cost, considering it unnecessary. After realizing that afternoon safari is already full, we had no choice but to book online and pay extra. We requested the South Tourism contact person to do the needful as the internet connection was flaky on mobile.
Heart Shaped Flowers
Instead of the boat safri, we decided to cover the spice garden. The garden owner was pretty enthusiastic person and walked us through the garden thoroughly, showing various spices, trees, flowers and fruits. Mrunmay got bored after a while, but managed to last until end. Finally he got some excitement when we introduced him to the plant - Mimosa - लाजाळू. He shut off every leaf of every mimosa plant that he could see!!

We were staying at Abad Green Forest, which was hosting lot of monkeys along with Human Beings. The bellboy and the receptionist had strictly warned us to keep the windows closed all the time so as not to let the monkeys in and destroy the food items. We could see lot of monkeys when we checked in and were walking towards our room, but after that point, we hardly saw any monkey until we checked out next day!!

We had our booking done for Periyar boat ride for the next day morning - safari was to start at 7:30 AM and driver had requested us to be ready by 6:45 AM. We had to reach the entry gate of the forest reserve, take the entry tickets and then walk down about couple of kilometers. The walk was pretty simple, but full of large trees - some very large - which you can't hug fully. 

As we were settling down in the boat, suddenly we saw a pack of wild dogs on the other bank of the river. All of them were looking as if they had finished their breakfast and were on the lookout for water. The pack was keeping sufficient distance from the boat and didn't allow us to take some good snaps. These dogs reminded me of our experience in Tadoba, where they had hunted down a sambar deer!!

Rest of the safari was rather bland. Except for some egrets, bisons and some other birds, we didn't see anything. It looked like this vacation wasn't meant for any real wild animals (which I am happy about, but Meghana is not!!)

After the boat ride, it was time to pack bags and drive to Alleppey and the backwaters!

Comments

It is actually a very nice place. I have been to Munnar once 2 years back and really loved the place a lot. Thank u for sharing the snaps...

Popular posts from this blog

What is "B A Y"?

Subscription Services

Twiki to Notion