Periyar

Early start this morning at 7am to do a jungle walk in the tiger reserve. It was a beautiful bright morning and we spent 2 hours walking though the jungle with a forest guide. We were given protective socks against leeches! We didn't see any tigers but we did see all of the animals below!

White cheeked barbitt
Family of Indian Gaur
Wild chickens
Minor bird
Scarlet minuet bird
Orange minute bird
Hoopy bird - very rare
Racket trail drongo bird
Serpent eagle
Treepie
Black monkey
Brahamy kite
Giant malibar squirrel
Macaque

After the walk finished we went into the town and had breakfast of omelette, toast, watermelon juice and masala chai. We then went back to the hotel to shower and change. We'd booked a massage with kizhi which meant that after the massage they used a small bag with rice, oils and sand to pummel the body. It was finished off with 15 minutes in an individual steam chamber!

We returned to the hotel and after a short time spent organising photos, we went for a walk back into town and then stopped at the place we'd been the previous day for a beer and club sandwich. Back at the hotel, after a quick shower, we meet up with the group again at 5.30 to walk the short distance to the place where we'd be seeing a martial arts demo. The performance lasted one hour and included the use of knives, sticks, some gymnastic routines and disarming someone with a knife using nothing more than a strip of cloth. The final part of the performance used burning sticks swirled at speed and then one of the performers jumping through progressively smaller hoops!

After this we went to a restaurant for food and on the way back to the hotel some of us stopped for one drink. The massage had clearly made us very relaxed and sleepy as we were in bed and asleep just after 9.30!Read more