22nd Feb: We arrived in Kumily today to visit the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerela. The drive on the bus was beautiful, this state is so much greener and lush than anwhere else we have visited. The next day for some strage reason we arrrange a hike into the park which started at 5am!! A jeep took us part of the way into the park stopping to see black monkeys malabar giant squirrels, deer and some birds. At the hiking lodge we had a very strage breakfast of pineapple jam on bread and fried eggs - delicious!! We then spent about four hours trekking elephants but only managed to hear them eating and drinking by the river - very dissapointing. We still had a good day and a bloody hard walk by the time we got back we were exhausted and starving!! That night we ate in a restaurant that didn't have a licence to sell alcohol so served beer in teapots and mugs - ingenious!

We were so keen to see elephants we tourtured ourselves again the next day with another trek which was even harder, we literally walked uphill on incredibly steep slopes for about four hours and only managed to see the tail of a giant lizard as it ran away from us. So all in all i think our days as elephant hunters are doomed!