Day 10 Mon 5th Nov -India - Rainforest Trek

After meeting Bidhu in reception at 06:45 we drive 5 minutes to the Periyar Tiger Reserve for our mornings trek in the rainforest. We are kitted out with leech socks and water. A guide takes us into the rainforest and over the 2 hours of walking along tiny tracks and scrambling through the vegetation we see a herd of deer, Indian Bison, endangered lion tale macaque & the Indian Giant Red Squirrel which can make leaps of 6m (20ft)
The reserve also has 150 different kinds of orchids. We can hear the monkeys and our Tracker spots them for us high in the trees as well as the Giant Squirrels tale hanging down which unfortunately was the only part we saw of him.
Leeches clung to our pumps and the Tracker sprinkles tobacco on our footwear and leech socks. This seems to do little and Bidhu asks if we brought the mosquito repellent, we spray and it does the trick!
The sounds of the rainforest were amazing, the birds, our tracker knew them all, hornbills and fly catchers, parrots, but we caught only glimpses of the fly catchers and parrots.

Thoroughly enjoyed the adventure and ignored the large spxxxxs we saw from my mind.
Breakfast, shower and at 1130 we met Bidhu and Sodram again for a 10 min drive to an organic spice farm. A young lad takes us through the spices and their uses, his English and knowledge excellent, we then hit the farm shop and buy buy buy!!

We now have the rest of the day to chill by the pool until our massage at 16:00.
I was not so sure about mine but Russ thoroughly enjoyed his and sounds like he had a much better one than me! Mine just seemed to hurt!
At dinner the usual friendly staff were there to help us with our choices and to try new dishes. On asking for a coffee I was asked to try their “AllSpice coffee which was absolutely delicious.

We felt very chilled and was in bed by 9 falling asleep to the sounds of the forest, sleeping very well indeed.