named after thekku, teak trees. There are a lot of them around, and of course more of them have been cut down.
Today has been a lovely day, as our young Brit women would say. After a good nights sleep, we got up at five thirty, and headed for the Periyar Tiger Reserve, for about a three hour walk through the rain forest. It was very pretty, but I think we are spoiled by living in Oregon. We did not ooooo and ahhh... except over the lovely leeches, that were squirming all over out boots, and legs. What ugly little things. We had to wear special "socks" so they would not get into our shoes. They are very fast. The socks looked like gators. We had to make sure our shirts were tucked in, and there were no flapping parts. As it was, Mike did get bitten, once, on the stomach. I seemed to not get bitten. The spread tobacco power over them to kill them. The walk was pleasant, when I could ignore those ugly worms. I had my keens on which have absolutely no traction, and it was extremely wet and muddy. (The monsoon is still going on). I had one very good slip, right down this hill. My main concern was that I was leech free. We came home, had a warm shower, did our laundry, which is still drying in our room, and had breakfast, around 11am. After that we set out to do e mail. Got and bit done and the power failed. So we decided to go get our Ayurvedic messages. Oh ... were they nice. For 90 minutes, it was pure bliss. For about 15 dollars, or less. It was so nice, I could do it again, but probably won't. Then we came down for e mail again, as the power came back on, we sat down did it for about half and hour, and then wham.. the power is off. Left, went and had some lovely Masala tea, and chocolate, and read a bit. Now that the power is back on, we are back here. Hopefully we can finish now.
Last night we went to a spice plantation. It was almost dark, but what we saw and heard was very interesting. The guy that owns it, is going to be on a BBC special sometime soon. We then went into his home and had a delicious Kerala (South Indian State, where we are) dinner. There was not silverware, and it was fun eating with our hands, as is the custom here. They have a sink right in the dining room. Very handy.
we will meet the group for dinner around seven. We have one more night of the tour, after this one. In some ways, I am sorry to see this part of the tour end, in other ways, I am anxious to move on to Northern India. It won't be so hot or so rainy there, I hope.
We had another long train ride the day before yesterday. About seven and a half hours. This time I noticed tons of roaches crawling everywhere! I tried to ignore them, but no matter where I moved, they moved along with me. Yuck. We were on our way to Madurai, spelling is probably wrong. It was another big dirty smelly noisy city. The second largest temple in India is there, that is why we st oped there. We went in the evening, and observed many people "praying" to various incarnations of Shiva. Interesting, but way to confusing to remember any of it. My feet are getting this brown grime, that I can't seem to get rid of. To much walking barefoot through temples. (You can not wear your shoes inside). That evening we had a very nice dinner, on a roof top restaurant, there was a cool breeze, good food, and I even managed to get a beer. It was a nice evening too, except for the long train ride to get us there.
To get here, Thekkady, the four Spanish women, the Australian, Mike and I hired a private jeep. It was less then 15$ each. We decided to do this because we did not want to hassle with the public transport, the others took. All of our luggage would of had to stay with us, and the buses are more often then not very crowded, so we went the easy way. It was just fine.
So, this brings us up to date, more or less. I do know that tomorrow night we will be staying with a family on one of the islands in the "backwaters." Exactly how we get there, I don't know. I am not sure how far it is, though I do know that we are at least a few hours away from the coast. the trains are quick, and pretty clean, and more room then our little mini bus we usually get,but i don't like the roaches. I don't want to bring any home either!
After tomorrow night, which will be Sunday, as I write this on Saturday, I know we get back to our starting place, on Monday afternoon. We have that evening in Cochin, and then we have a 10 o'clock flight out of Cochin to Delhi. It is about a five or six hour trip. Then we meet up with our next tour group on Tuesday, and start all over again......
Till next time..
Susan
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