Adventures of the Elephant Kind

We desperately wanted to visit a nature preserve in India. Up until now, our plans had been thwarted by closed parks for non-existent monsoons or no reason at all. Last week, we decided to undertake the 20 hour journey from Goa to the Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu. It did not disappoint.

Formed in 1940, the Mudumalai National Park is part of 3 parks spanning 6000 square kilometers in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karanataka. The park is home to wild elephants, tiger, monkeys, leopards, spotted deer, sloth bear, Indian giant squirrel, wild boar, guar, bison, and peacocks among other animals. These animals share the park with several indigenous tribes.

Our drive in from Calicut on the coast to the park was the beginning of the excitement. In the 5 hour drive, we traveled in a fairly new Ambassador through tropical forests, rain forests, banana and coconut plantations. Father up in the hills, the air began to have a New England chill and the forest turned to more tropical dry deciduous. On the road to the report in Masiniguri, we experienced our first elephant sightings. This was only the beginning.

The Green Park Resort is a small middle-budget resport with a garden, restaurant, rooms and cottages. Aimed mainly at Indian tourists from Banglaore, it was full on this holiday weekend as 10/2/07 was Gandhi's birthday and a national holiday. The rooms were a little stuffy but clean. The remarkable aspect of this hotel is so simple and brilliant. As soon as we walked into the place, a man named Raju was assigned to us. He awoke us in the morning, arranged all our jeep excursions, cooked and served our breakfast, lunch, and dinners, and generally took care of all our needs. His brother Vishnu was our jeep driver and wildlife spotter. His other brother Ramesh arranged our trek. before knowing they were related, we thought all people in Tamil Nadu were particularly friendly with large round faces with pink cheeks and a head of dark curly hair.

The first morning, Raju woke us at 4:45AM for a jeep excursion into the park. The animals often move around looking for water ass-early in the morning. We didn't see any until the sun came up. Off in the distance Vishu spotted several elephants - a mother and her two calves were feeding. The other animals that weren't scared away by our roaring jeep were bison, peacocks, and deer.

Later in the day, Raju arranged a short trek to a famous waterfall. During the jeep ride there, we had our most thrilling wild elephant spotting - the mother with her 2 calves ran down the hill, and crossed the road 10 feet from our jeep.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to the domestic elephant park. The elephant park is home to some 25 elephants either found or rescued from danger randing in age from 1 year 2 months to 73 years old (the average lifespan is 60). One of their duties in the park is to guide wild elephants away from villages. Daily, they are worked, bathed for a 1/2 hour, and fed. The exception are the 2 geriatric elephants, 73 and 60 years of age, who are on pension. Each has an individual diet based on their age and level of work consisting of rice, 2 types of lentils, salt, coconut, sugar cane, and minerals. The mahouts pound the prescribed amount of food into 1 kg molds and stack them all on the table for presentation, complete with a place card for each elephant. When all the places are set, the mahouts mash up the carefully measured food and stick it into the elephants' mouths!

At 6AM the next morning, we leave for a trek with friendly Ramesh and a second man with a machete who barely acknowledges our presence. We arrive at the trail head as we are still waking up, the second man is sharpening a machete on a rock. Ramesh tells us to be silent and walk in a single file. We proceed to walk at a snails pace through thick jungles and grassy fields. The man with a machete moved like a wild animal, every now and then freezing in his tracks as he looks into what appears like a weed patch to me. Ramesh tells us later that this man is a tribal villager who can smell tiger, leopards, and elephants. Furthermore, in the area we were walking, there were 3 separate tiger spottings in the last month. A tiger trek! This was news to me. I thought we were going on a nice walk through the jungle to see waterfalls or something. I also could not belive he could smell anything since while walking behind him all I could smell was tobacco. After 4 hours of walking in complete silence, we were only lucky enough to see some wild monkeys. This was refreshing since monkeys in India are fairly scruffy city-dwelling ones that people throw rocks at. We saw scores of evidence of large animals - elephant mud tracks, stripped tree bark, warm football sized elephant dung, and agitated watering holes. The hunt for a tiger, pretty thrilling. Face to face with one, best left for the zoo.

- Nisha