To be honest, I didn’t expect to see a tiger or anything really exotic on the safari but I thought there would be a good chance I would see an elephant in the wild – even if off at a great distance. After all, Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary claims to be home to more than 1000 elephants. It was an early start – the jeep picked me up at 5:30 in the morning from in front of my guest house. There were four others on the safari in my jeep though as the day progressed, more and more jeeps were encountered along the roads of the sanctuary. It reminded me a little of the packaged tours I did in Vietnam five years ago. You would be escorted from activity to activity within your own small group though all the groups were essentially on the same schedule. In my group was Orla from Ireland, Carly from England and Bruno and Sofia from Italy. Bruno spoke little English and Sofia slightly more so I got over my shyness when I recognized that they didn’t understand what was going on for a moment and explained the situation in fluent Italian. It was great because I got to practice speaking Italian all day and learned some new words such as ‘ sugo sange’ which is Italian for leeches. Yes, leeches. Probably the one thing that caused me to hesitate the most about the safari was the thought of leeches; however the tour provided canvas gators for our use during the ‘trekking’ part of the safari. There was actually a lot more to the safari than safari and the bulk of the schedule was concentrated on the trekking through the leech-filled jungle where there was little or no chance to spot wildlife. Even if there had been an elephant standing in the middle of the path I doubt many of us would have seen it since we were all looking at our feet for the fast little suckers who would make a slinky-like movement up our legs in search of some place to latch on. Luckily all the guides brought salt which we all liberally reapplied to our shoes and gators. I thought it was remarkable that I was the only person (other than the tour guides) who was not wearing closed toe shoes and I was one of the few that did not fall victim to the leeches. One person was wearing gortex shoes and pants which were tucked into his socks under the gators and when he removed them at the end of the trek he found two large leeches on his calf. At the end of the first trek we were given the opportunity to walk in the jungle for another 90 minutes or head back to the canteen we all opted for the canteen. I felt especially bad for the young Indian woman on her honeymoon on the safari. Someone had probably told them that it would be incredibly romantic.
The other ‘highlight’ of the trek was the boat ride over to the waterfall. The fog was so thick that when we were in the middle of the lake there was no way to tell what was ahead and what was behind. We spotted the silhouette of a couple of birds but they were so far away it was difficult to tell what they were. I asked our guide, Jegga, what kind of fish lived in the lake and he replied ‘goldfish’.
At the bottom of the schedule we were given the language seemed to imply that we could linger more in one of the activities. I asked our guide if we could drive somewhere in the jeep and park for a while – what my idea of a safari is – but he said we had completed all of our activities and would head back to town. Jegga was very kind and knowledgeable. The government hires local tribal people who have grown up in the jungle for this part of the trek though Jegga confessed that he would prefer to be a driver. It was a shame to learn that of my 1650 rupees (roughly $37 USD) for the safari – around 8000 rupees for the five of us, Jegga receives 135 rupees (~$3) per day. Granted, there are other people doing the maintenance, cooking, vehicle fees, etc. but it seems distorted. Especially since in addition to the safari fee we each had to pay the 200 rupee entrance fee plus 100 rupees for being a foreigner, plus 25 rupees for the use of a digital camera.
When I arrived back at my guest house, Bobby came over to give me change that he owed me, see how the safari was and try to book another tour for the next day. He was hammered and smelled as if had been on an all day drinking binge. I expressed my disappointment about the safari and the whole operation in general and told him I would not be booking any other tours through the government. Later that evening I met Orla and Carly for dinner where we discussed our plans to tour the spice and tea plantations the following day.
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