12th feb - Kumily

woke up and after some lovely homemade brown bread from the homestay next door, the coffee inn, we walked a couple of kms to the periyar national park. of course lots more extra charges for foreigners and the peaceful forrest noise poluuted by more auto rickshaws.
Got to the main part of the park...you can't just wander round by yourself (there ARE apparently tigers and definetly elephants) and so really only option is the boat ride. these are at scheduled times so had just missed the boat, and plus its so popular (mostly indian tourists!) that you need to book like at least an hour in advance. Decided to mish to town and check out a spice plantation, so went and moved into our tree hut and had a snack of our new fav crisps...kurekurme or something, YUM. like curried twisties! The spice garden was almost just that, not excactly a plantation but bits and pieces here and there. we ad a tour with a young girl, about 17 or so who definetly didn't hide her disdain of north indian tourists...apaprently they pick everything and then throw it away and they don't listen and retain any information. quite funny hearing her take on them, she wasn't impressed at all! we seemed to be accepted tho and asked the right questions. Despite the north vs. south she really knew her stuff and told us about (and showed us) pepper, cocca, vanilla pods, corriander, several types of basil, jack fruit (which is the biggest fruit in the world), pods that make toddy a sweet drink that is also made into an alcoholic drink (she didn't seem to approve of that either!), coffee beans, rose apples (v yummy and only grown for personal consumption), pineapples, bananas and probably a whole lot more i'm forgetting. we also saw a flower that only blooms ever 12 years! you'd think you'd get a whole good flower for that but not so...so puny lil thing that looks like a weed. and they use it for ornimental use only! didn't really see the point there but oh well. got her address to send her some new zealand coins as she collects them. oh and also got some sugar substitue! from a flower that is like 1000 time sweeter than sugar and with no calories and cholestoral. sounds like a bit of me, so hoepfully i can get it into NZ! is called stevia.
Went back to the park and got our boat ride which wasn't amazing (didn't see many animals, only deer and wild boar) but was very pretty on the lake. The lake is man made for a damn so there is dead tree trunk poking out everywhere and the banks are very grassy so it looks quite prehistoric, which was quite cool. for the rest not sure what all the fuss was about.
Headed to a local joint for dinner and both order thali (a mixture of dishes) and defintely were NOT allowed to order anything else WITH the thali...jsut cos you don't do that...the waiter wouldn't let us! but anyways was MORE than enough for dinner and very nice. Getting used to eat off those metal bowls and plates...its kinda prison-like but efficient. Also still not really eating (ok not at all) rice and curry saucey stuff in my fingers...gott have a spoon. I'm bnot a great eater with my fingers anyways...i like my utensils thanks very much!Den popped to the drugstore for cream (for his pinkness) and i had a good nosy at all the fairness cream and hair blackner and then all these herbals pastes for your face. give lewins a run for their money perhaps mum?