Ooty, India
11° 23' N 76° 41' E
Nov 22, 2006 14:23
Distance 154km

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off the beaten path

Text written in: English

next stop, wayanad wildlife preserve and the town of monthavadi. this town is so otbp it isn't even in the lonely planet or the ball of dirt database.  the restaurants dont have menus and don't even think of finding a cheese pizza.

at least our hotel, which looked way too nice from the outside (as in, there's no way we can afford this, right?) turned out to be one of the cheapest so far. AND had a TV, with cable! (never mind the 3' grasshopper in the bathroom. we wont talk about that one...). combine this with cheap internet and we debated about staying another day except for 2 things. one: everything poor peds ordered turned out to be a horror-show on a plate so he was slowly starving and two: the power kept cutting out. serioulsy unacceptable. but no worries, just forced ourselves to rally in one day, immediately head to the nature preserve, then git! 

true to india, we learned the fast way that 'nature preserve' is yet another code for 'screw the tourists'. on one hand, was nice to have prices posted so we didn't have to bargain. on the other hand, paying 200 rupees for an eco-guide who looked younger than my nephews and spoke no english felt a little like just bending over...  too bad we paid up front, I was gonna take 25r off for every peacock and deer we spotted instead of him.

in the end, we saw wild deer (ummmm....have you been to minnesota recently? they're EVERYWHERE), water buffalo (same deal - been to vietnam?), peacocks (K. those were cool), a wild boar (PEDS pointed out how deadly they could be, NOT the 'eco-guide'. knowing this tid-bit was cool. [side note: did you read on the BBC about the kid who was killed by so-called-tame pigs in delhi? he was 'carrying bread'. the pigs were starving and attacked him. having been there,  I can honeslty see how this would happen.]). also saw monkeys (bummer - I'm so jaded from traveling - wild monkeys arent exciting like they used to be :(, and one 'wild' elephant which we learned later has a name. (is something truly wild if it has a name? sounds more like a pet to me....and I bet if you looked close, you'd notice the chain around his leg keeping him in that same spot all day)

but all in all, the wilderness was cool. teak plantations - cool. hillsides covered in palms - amazingly cool. switchback road down a cliff - creepy in a tin-can bus but still cool. we spent loads of (harsh!) bus time to see a few monkeys, cows n deer, but it's our job to say it was worth it right?! (it was ;)

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Photos / videos of "off the beaten path":

a few street scenes from the bus rare sight - actually fixing potholes teak plantation cute, evasive nancy (my specialty) adorable peds mysterious peds our first animal sighting - the elephant (seen only via super-zoom) driver we paid too much for (he turned off the jeep and coasted down hills - we should get a gas refund!) eco-guide we paid too much for (note deer-in-the-headlights stare) me finally having ENOUGH of india (sorry mom...) peds laughing at my pain a 'boofalow' 'peeg' 'peecock' (go natural camo - can hardly see it) 'monkeees'. too bad the jeep was so bouncy - couldn't get a good shot even if I wanted to scenery rocked tho bus down switch-back hill. (btw - there's no door) first of many switchbacks (haven't seen em in so long I'm actually taking pictures!) hills full of palms lush valley on the way out of the park area trying to snap a pic of this bus but these cute kids crowded in (staring away, of course ;)
earlier Entry 88 of 162 later
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