We were keen to come here and get into the hills and out of the heat. It's a region with a number of wildlife reserves and we picked a homestay due to the convenience of having the park gates, right outside the door. Unfortunately, this entrance to the park was closed for 3 months, for a reason we couldn't quite establish but we think they were building a bridge in there. It didn't really matter though as we had the lovely Dillip drive us just a little further to Nagarhole Wildlife Park in the hope of seeing a tiger. We unfortunately weren't so lucky as to spot any tigers or leopards, which given that we were on a 20 seat bus that made a great racket going round the same route it goes round 6 or 7 times a day, was no great surprise. There doesn't seem to be the development of tourism and safaris here as there is in South Africa for example, which may or may not be a shame for the preservation of the wildlife in the future.

We have however seen plenty of wildlife in Wayanad, on that tour we saw bison, tonnes of deer (including muntjac which i tutted at appropriately mum), an eagle, and lots of other birds and animals that i don't know the name of and we caught a glimpse of elephants walking through the forest on route. We also had a sunset trip to a 3,000 year old temple close to where we were staying which turned into an impromptu wildlife safari. On our way over some rocks, I spotted two fairly big rat snakes and was very proud of myself as I neither yelped or ran away but squeaked a little to make sure the others saw them too. Not poisonous apparently. Phew. Then, on our way home in the jeep, we saw a huge bison just hanging out by the edge of the road and five minutes later two female elephants, one with a baby. It was wonderful to see them, they didn't really seem to notice us or care that we were there, although my stupid suggestion of turning the engine off was met with a scornful 'no madam, they are wild animals and are dangerous'. Quite right too.

We stayed in a kind of treehouse/room on stilts which was kind of charming but when I saw another rat snake just at the foot of the steps up to our front door, I felt a little nervous about creepy crawlies and neither of us slept very well for our stay here. We were well fed and entertained by our host the lovely if somewhat eccentric Vennu who told us constantly that he was a working man and laughed a lot at things that we could not understand. A very kind man though and looked after us very well.

The coolness of the evenings here unfortunately didn't stretch through the day so we abandoned our plans to go for a 15k walk and decided to make our way to the coast to a little town that a couple we met Jules (from Fyfield!) and Tanya recommended.