Moving toward a life unplanned: Camping with Elephants, or why I'm missing my SLR camera

One of the big events that I wanted to do in India from the beginning of my planning was the “Tiger Trail” in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, which is a one or two night guided hiking/camping trip inside the reserve. It came highly recommended from a couple of travel books I had read, and it definitely lived up to the reviews for me. I decided that if I was going to endure a 6 hour bus ride to and from the reserve, I should go ahead and do the 2 night trek, and since no one else booked for those two days, I had to pay a little extra; about $200 for 2 nights camping, 2 days guided hiking, all the gear I’d need, 3 huge meals a day, plus coffee and tea and 4 guides constantly checking to make sure I was having a good time. Outrageously expensive, right? Well, joking aside, it was a much more expensive couple of days than the $15 a night hotels and $3 meals I've been enjoying, but I feel like I got my money’s worth.

Step 1 for the trip was to get my "leech proof socks", which I didn't know existed before I got them. While useful, they still didn't stop one very determined leech who made it up to my arm.

That thing that looks like a discarded log is the transportation to the campsite.

A water-eye's view of the ride to the campsite. If you expand the photo, you can see the campsite straight ahead in the distance.

The Tiger Trail is this great program the state government has been running for over 15 years where reformed tiger and elephant poachers are paid to lead tourists on hikes and give us the benefit of their “insider” expertise on the forest, instead of killing the things the reserve is trying to save, something I’m all in favor of. My four guides took me out beyond the walking trails that the day visitors get to go, into the nearby forest areas, but not into the core areas of the preserve where the really rough terrain and dangerous animals are. The Tiger Trail campsite is on the edge of “Lake” Periyar, a reservoir created by the British over 120 years ago, and from that base camp we did 2-3 hikes a day for two days, with long breaks in between for rest and meals.

Here is the view from one side of the campsite.

And the view from the other. This mother and calf were a constant presence around the campsite, especially anytime something was being cooked.

Speaking of the meals, this group of guys whipped up some of the best meals I've had in India, cooking out of a little field kitchen in the woods. They used fresh veggies, lots of spices, and fish caught by the tribal locals from Lake Periyar to make these enormous meals of curries and rice, bread and fruits, that had me stuffed for days. This brings me to a broader point about the food I had in India, namely that I did not have a bad meal the entire time I was here. I almost feel the same way as I did about the food in Greece; using fresh ingredients and simple recipes it’s hard to make the meals either terrible or amazing, it’s just all good. I didn't eat at any fancy 4-star places, but the street stands, roadside diners, and nicer sit-down restaurants all served delicious local versions of curries, seafood, breads, and rice dishes. And I like any country where if the waiter asks you “Spicy or not spicy?” and I say “Spicy”, he smiles as if to say that’s the only correct answer. Of course, he may actually be smiling because he’s thinking “You want the spicy? You can’t handle the spicy.” I’m also happy to report that I never had any intestinal issues or got sick, even though I was only really taking the most basic common sense steps to prevent it (not drinking unfiltered water, eating mostly vegetarian meals, etc.). I would really like to credit my superhuman immune system and constitution for this, but I also realized about halfway through the trip that the anti-malarial medication I’m taking daily is in fact a mild dose of antibiotics. That may have had something to do with not having any problems, but I’m still choosing to believe I have a superhuman immune system.

Having a pair of elephants as neighbors was pretty cool, and led to a lot of scenes like this one, with both groups staring at one another.

This is literally the view from inside my tent. Pretty memorable.

<<There is a break here in my writing of this post because I’m still on the Tiger Trail, morning 2, and they brought me breakfast, which was 4 small puri (fried bread), potato and onion curry, and about a pound of fried spiced fish. With second helpings of everything. I would need to hike about 24 hours a day just to work off the calories from the meals they serve at the campsite.>>

So anyway, back to the Tiger Trail itself. I got to hike in a beautiful forest (which I love), camp without having to carry any gear (which I love even more), and see some incredible animals, many of which I’d never seen in the wild before, including

Bison
Sambar deer
Barking deer
Elephants
Porcupine
Wild dogs
Wild boar
Green parrots
Kingfishers
Monkeys (2 species)
Eagles
Mongoose
Sloth Bear

This list basically encompasses all the large animals in the reserve, with the exception of tigers and leopards, but I wasn't honestly expecting to see either of them. The tigers only show up on tourist hikes once every few months and they are extremely shy, plus the park only has about 50 tigers scatters over hundreds of square miles. It’s still a very impressive couple of days, and the guides kept telling me how lucky I was to see so much. In fact, everywhere I've been in India, locals have been telling me how lucky I am because of the weather, because there aren't many other tourists this time of year, or because certain attractions either just opened or will close soon. Apparently, everyone in India just thinks I’m a lucky guy, and I’m inclined to agree.

While I didn't see any tigers, the camp did have a resident mother and calf elephant team who hung around the campsite every time the mother could smell something was cooking. This was very cool for the first hour or so, and then became increasingly less fun after that, because you had to sneak across the protective trench around the campsite every time you wanted to leave, because she would quite literally kill someone if she thought they were a danger to her calf. Also, if we were watching her for too long and got within range, she would occasionally throw dirt and rocks at us, but I have to say it was a pretty cool experience to wake up in a tent in the middle of the night and hear this noise and think “What’s that? Oh, that’s the sound of a elephant eating grass a few feet away.” On the other side of an 8 foot trench, mind you. Most of the time, though, she just stood and stared at us, as if to say “Hey guys, what’s up? Is that vegetable curry I smell?”

I told you, she liked to throws things

A tiger print, easily as large as my hand

All in all, it was a great couple of days, I felt good about supporting a great program, saw some amazing animals (the Sloth bear encounter was particularly exciting), and enjoyed some R&R in a beautiful natural area. Now I just need to figure out a way to come back and see some tigers so I can say I've done everything I wanted to do in India.