After Ayutthaya, we headed to Chiang Mai, Thailand's second largest city and the cultural capital. This, like Goa, was on everyone's "must see" list of Thailand. On paper and in the book it sounded great - an abundance of outdoor activities, plenty of bars, and a laid-back atmosphere. What this amounted to was a sort of European spring-break. Do you really need to walk around a foreign country in your swim trunks? There is no beach for hundreds of miles. Initially, we planned to do a 2-3 day trek or bike ride. However, we didn't feel comfortable with the types of tours available. Many of them read like this:
Day 1: trek through Long Neck village, bamboo raft down a river, see elephants at work, sleep in a Lisu village.
Day 2: visit Monkey Farm, trek through Big Ear tribal village, mountain bike through national forest, swim in waterfalls, sleep in Hmong village.
Day 3: more of the same
You get the picture. Too many activities, too long on a tour bus for our liking. We rented a car and took a road trip north with no particular destination in mind, only a Northern Thailand road map.
Our first stop was in interesting orchid farm. I can't believe I even try to grow orchids in New England after seeing their success. Next was the Queen's Botanical gardens. The first thing I would do if I were Queen after abolishing poverty and disease, would be to decree such a spectualr botanical garden. The place was about 100 artfully and naturally manicured acres featuring waterfalls, a herbal walking trail, and glass houses. The highlight were the several glass greenhouses holding an orchid collection, desert landscape, carnivorous plant house, water garden, and bromielad house among a few. The tropical greenhouse held a specimen of the largest palm tree in the world.
We stayed at a lovely bungalow style guest house called Malee's, with a killer Thai buffet at night made by Malee herself. We started our explorations of Chiang Dao with a visit to the famous caves and then a dip in the natural hot springs.
It is evident from being in Thailand for a short time that their love for the King and Queen is rivaled by their love of elephants, their national animal. Many Thais have turned this love into a business. There are at least a dozen "elephant training camps" around the Chiang Mai province. Some of these are actually conservation centers that have hospitals and work on elephant husbandry. We tried to sign up for a 3 day course with the Thai Elephant Conservation Center but they were full. However, the majority of these seem to be the Thai version of an elephant circus. We visited the Chiang Dao Elephant Camp with some trepidation as I had heard that elephants in some of the camps are mistreated, but I wanted to see for myself. The elephants did look healthier than your average city living elephant in India. They were in a very natural setting, no concrete and plenty of water and food. The morning was spent watching the elephants bathe, feeding them, and then were were presented with basically an elephant circus. They raised the flag, bowed for us, moved logs around, picked up trash to demonstrate the agility with their trunk, and painted.
The part I have a problem with is that these are billed as "elephants at work" by every Thai person. I saw no working or training. Also, why when logging with elephants has been banned for 100 years in Thailand, do these animals need to work? The elephants at the Mudumalai park at least were moving logs to be used as fuel for their own dinner. They actually had work to do as well - to herd wild elephants away from villages. There are no wild elephants in this area or logging. How is using a endangered animal to pick up trash training??? Of course money is the motivating factor. These elephant camp stops are on every tour and the vast majority of the people there were on a tour. Also, if it was called a circus, no one would want to come. I am glad that they are treating the animals well, births are occurring, and they are raising awareness for the animals. If you go to a camp, just know that you are really going for a circus show.
On the same note as the elephant circus, visiting the tribal villages seeming like a human circus. There are about 8 different tribal villages that have settled in this area from Tibet, China, and Myanmar. The government has either provided them with refugee camps or land dotted with villages. The Long Neck village is actually a village of Burmese refugees near the border that wear many gold rings around their necks. I was interested in visiting a few of the villages. However, I don't know if it is the bad translation of the brochures, but all the treks made it out to seem that you were visiting a human zoo or circus. Instead we hired a local guide in Chaing Dao and visited a few villages in the hills around our guest house. They were the poorest people I have seen in Thailand so far. There were 5 different tribal villages on the same road that all spoke a different language. All their kids went to the same school to learn Thai, which will probably result in the death of their indigenous languages. They all lead agrarian village lives and supplement their income from selling their colorful textiles to tourists.
Our guide's friend named Mr. Moon, then lead us on a trek through the jungle near Chiang Dao mountain. As it had raining the previous 3 days, the waterfalls were beautifully swollen and the paths muddy. Both Ian and I had the feeling that we were in an American Vietnam War movie. Actually, the Deer Hunter was filmed near here. There was no Charlie to shoot at us, only Mr. Moon who showed us how to make a potato-gun-like device out of 3 pieces of bamboo.
With so much to do in Chiang Dao, we never made it farther. But the beauty of the road-map-road-trip is the found in the journey.
- Nisha
Showing posts with label Wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wildlife. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Lord of the Manor
After wrapping up Durga Puja in Kolkata, our next planned more was an excursion to north West Bengal with Dave and Susan as well as their friends Sarah and Rakesh. We had met Sarah and Rakesh before because they are the ones who put up Nisha for a month in their nice flat when she was here for a month after the wedding 4 years ago.
A little background. Rakesh works for in the office of a tea company in Kolkata. However, his previous position in the company was the manager of one of the tea estates in Assam. Before then he had been manager or assistant manager at any number of the company's eight estates in North Bengal and Assam. Last time we were in Kolkata he had captivated us with stories of capturing tigers and the enormity of the estates as well as inviting all of us up to an estate if we ever had the time. So, our itinerary on this trip was to fly up, spend some time at an estate, then swing up to Sikkim for a few days and head back.
So, we have an uneventful flight to Bagdogra, the airport of Siliguri, which is the dusty transportation junction of north West Bengal. From there we head out in a couple of SUVs for the 3 hour drive out to the estate. By the time we arrive it is after dark, so all we see are tea plants in the dark as we drive the 2km from the gate to the Bungalow where we will be staying. When we arrive at the Bungalow, Rakesh swings open the rusty gate and we enter into the driveway of this massive two story concrete and tin roof building. The paint is stained on the outside, but by the massive verandas and screened porches you can tell that this is a grand house.
We are met by the three man staff of the house and led inside. Like many leftovers from the British era in India this house mixed mostly 1950's (and earlier) fixtures and furniture with the care and cleanliness of a full time staff being dedicated to it. Our bedroom and bathroom on the second floor was as big as most Indian houses, with a 3m wide veranda out front. There was even an old ping-pong table set up in front of our door. Fitting with this colonial environment we were served tea and a dinner of nice continental food, along with a few sips of country rice wine before heading to sleep. Despite the five air-raid sirens that go off between 5AM and 6AM to wake the workers, we sleep in the cool quiet air until nine.
The next day we headed out in the SUVs to take a tour of the estate. The scale of this operation is incredible. The estate is separated into 46 sections and totals 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres). 6,621 people (the current manager knew the exact count instantly) live on the estate, with over 1,800 of them being permanent employees. The estate has its own school, hospital and multiple churches. We drive 1km and are still in the sections right near our bungalow.
As a crop, tea is basically like a giant hedge. It is a bush, which they plant in rows covering the entire section. The bushes are all spread out with a trimmed flat top around 75cm off the ground, the reason they all have this flat "table" as they call it, is because of how tea is harvested. When the tea bush has grown shoots about 6cm high from the table an army of pickers comes and picks the shoot off the top with their fingers. They remove the part of the stem with the top three leaves on it and discard any stem below. This results when they are done with the table being re-established. So when you look around the table of the tea bushes goes on for miles over the rolling hills. The interesting thing about tea as a crop is that it is harvest time 9 months out of the year. During this time the bushes need to be plucked once a week, thus the army of workers.
When we arrive at the area where the picking is going on we arrive just in time for the "weighment". The pickers all work by carrying a small bag with them as they pick and then depositing the tea in the small bag in a larger sack as the day goes on. Both of these bags are carried on the back by a strap over the forehead, traditional Indian style. Once around lunch and once at the end of the day each pickers bag is emptied into a large truck which is taken to the factory. When the truck pulls up an army of pickers scurries out of the garden, all laden with huge sacks of tea. As each bag is emptied it is weighed on a scale and the "Sadar", or supervisor, makes out a slip of paper that is handed to the picker. The pickers are required to pick 25kg of leaves in order to make their daily wage, then are compensated per kilogram above that. Considering after half a day the bags were all weighing about 30kgs, and one strapping young guy had a 54kg bag, it seemed to be a good day for the pickers.
Also when we were in this area we saw the trap that they had set up for the leopard that was thought to be living in the area. Evidently female leopards will often hide in the garden to have cubs since in the jungle they are likely to be eaten by the males. The problem is that the pickers cannot see the leopard as the pick, so there had been some incidents of mauling in the area. The trap was a cage type, with a smaller cage attached to put a goat into as bait. There was no goat in it at the time as it is only loaded at night. This is the best that they can do right now as it is against the law to shoot a leopard.
After this we went to the tea factory where the raw leaves are turned into the final product. This has to be done quickly as the longer the tea leaves sit around unprocessed the lower the quality of the tea. First the tea leaves are unloaded from the truck and loaded into a 50cm deep layer in the drying machine. The machine is like a big wind tunnel with a mesh floor that the tea sits on. Twelve hours or so later it has lost 30% of its weight and is unloaded. The tea is then ground into little balls in a series of knife rollers (leaf tea is made in a different process) then spread in a thin layer on the floor. This is called the fermentation, and during the one hour or so the tea is on the floor it changes color from bright green to the grey we are familiar with. Next the tea is dried to completion in large furnaces. The tea is then filtered and sorted into various grades of fineness, from course to dust. The tea is tasted, much like wine, every hour by the manager for quality control. Waste is also filtered out that is sold as fertilizer or to industrial caffeine manufactures.
The factory itself looked like another British era creation with lots of exposed belts and even a coal fired furnace for the drier. The thing that was impressive here was that all the leaves need to be processed immediately after they are picked. Now was a prime growing season so this factory was working 24/7 and has processed 48,000kg of tea leaves the day before we arrived.
That evening we were invited to have dinner with the current manager of the estate at his bungalow. The manager is a Anglo-Indian man who Rakesh had known for a long time and everyone called Timmy. His bungalow was smaller then the massive estate that we were staying on, but still extremely large and surrounded by an impeccable garden. It also had a large staff that was quick with the tea and drinks when we arrived. Also at the dinner was Timmy's wife, named Yasmin, and their very western daughters who were home from boarding school, as well as the Sikh assistant manager and his family.
For a while we were just hearing some stories of what goes into running the estate. The job certainly has some appeal in its luxurious perks and colonial English feel. The downsides are also there, with having to get up in the middle of the night to fix things at the factory high on the list. The thing that was most impressive was the amount of responsibility that the manager has. Despite the fact that the laws of the country still apply, the manager in many ways serves as the lord of this manor. In fact, there is a time set aside every week where he arbitrates domestic disputes and makes ruling for which there is no appeal process. The skills required are more diverse then any job that we previously thought existed. Where else can someone be an agricultural manager, magistrate, factory manager, wild animal chaser, etc.
We would see some of this constant excitement soon as a few servants scuffled in and told us that there were wild elephants in the garden right near the fence of the bungalow. As soon as Timmy offered to drive us out to take a look, Dave, Susan, Nisha and I all put down our beers and cocktails and piled into the managers SUV. The assistant manager also piled in the back and was told to keep watch for any elephants approaching from the back of the car.
The night was misty, but with a full moon, and we stained to see out into the dark, not aided by the smoke of Timmy's often present cigarette. As we pulled onto the first jeep track I spotted a silhouette of an elephant in the distance. We stopped quickly and I shined the flashlight on him, but only Nisha was able to see him before he bounded away. At this point I thought the excitement was over, but soon we saw the behinds of numerous elephants emerging from the garden to walk down the jeep track in front of us, directly in the headlights. We stayed at least 100m away and followed this heard for a little while. The herd consisted, but our count, of three adult females and five adolescent and baby elephants.
We lost them over a little rise in the road and when we topped the rise they were no longer visible. Then, the assistant manager spoke quickly and we realized that the heard was now sick of us following them and was 100m away in the garden, heading in the opposite direction, doubling back on us. We got a good look at the train of elepahants as they strode by, doing a fair amount trumpeting and breaking a lot of branches underneath their feet. Timmy made the call that observation time was over and stepped on it before we angered the heard any further. The fog obscured the road on the direct way home, making it unsafe with all the elephants about, so we returned by navigating the maze of jeep tracks that traverse the garden, which Timmy and the assistant manager all knew like the back of their hands. We also encountered a truck and three men who Timmy told us were the "Elephant Patrol", we stopped to tell them where the elephants were and they headed off to try to disperse them with their loud firecrackers and drums.
Dinner was rather sedate after all the excitement, but the food was good and we certainly headed back to our bungalow thinking that this was a pretty exciting night. Not everywhere can elephant chasing be part of the dinner party entertainment.
The next day we headed off early in the morning to go to Gangtok, in Sikkim, for the night and then returned the day after. We were only on the estate for a quiet night before heading to the airport, but we did hear an interesting and sad thing. In the day that we were gone a female picker had been mauled by the leopard in the area where we saw the trap a few days before. She was in the hospital and expected to recover. They were looking into getting the leopard declared a "Maneater" so that the forest department could shoot it, but it would probably have to kill someone before that declaration could be made. The multiple maulings in the last several months did not suffice, certainly highlighting the unintended effects of wildlife conservation laws.
As you can tell by the length of this tale it was certainly a memorable experience, a window into a world that most Americans probably think disappeared many years ago. Sarah, Rakesh, Timmy and his wife were all great hosts and we thank them for letting us see this unique, beautiful, relaxing and sometimes tragic place.
A little background. Rakesh works for in the office of a tea company in Kolkata. However, his previous position in the company was the manager of one of the tea estates in Assam. Before then he had been manager or assistant manager at any number of the company's eight estates in North Bengal and Assam. Last time we were in Kolkata he had captivated us with stories of capturing tigers and the enormity of the estates as well as inviting all of us up to an estate if we ever had the time. So, our itinerary on this trip was to fly up, spend some time at an estate, then swing up to Sikkim for a few days and head back.
So, we have an uneventful flight to Bagdogra, the airport of Siliguri, which is the dusty transportation junction of north West Bengal. From there we head out in a couple of SUVs for the 3 hour drive out to the estate. By the time we arrive it is after dark, so all we see are tea plants in the dark as we drive the 2km from the gate to the Bungalow where we will be staying. When we arrive at the Bungalow, Rakesh swings open the rusty gate and we enter into the driveway of this massive two story concrete and tin roof building. The paint is stained on the outside, but by the massive verandas and screened porches you can tell that this is a grand house.
We are met by the three man staff of the house and led inside. Like many leftovers from the British era in India this house mixed mostly 1950's (and earlier) fixtures and furniture with the care and cleanliness of a full time staff being dedicated to it. Our bedroom and bathroom on the second floor was as big as most Indian houses, with a 3m wide veranda out front. There was even an old ping-pong table set up in front of our door. Fitting with this colonial environment we were served tea and a dinner of nice continental food, along with a few sips of country rice wine before heading to sleep. Despite the five air-raid sirens that go off between 5AM and 6AM to wake the workers, we sleep in the cool quiet air until nine.
The next day we headed out in the SUVs to take a tour of the estate. The scale of this operation is incredible. The estate is separated into 46 sections and totals 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres). 6,621 people (the current manager knew the exact count instantly) live on the estate, with over 1,800 of them being permanent employees. The estate has its own school, hospital and multiple churches. We drive 1km and are still in the sections right near our bungalow.
As a crop, tea is basically like a giant hedge. It is a bush, which they plant in rows covering the entire section. The bushes are all spread out with a trimmed flat top around 75cm off the ground, the reason they all have this flat "table" as they call it, is because of how tea is harvested. When the tea bush has grown shoots about 6cm high from the table an army of pickers comes and picks the shoot off the top with their fingers. They remove the part of the stem with the top three leaves on it and discard any stem below. This results when they are done with the table being re-established. So when you look around the table of the tea bushes goes on for miles over the rolling hills. The interesting thing about tea as a crop is that it is harvest time 9 months out of the year. During this time the bushes need to be plucked once a week, thus the army of workers.
When we arrive at the area where the picking is going on we arrive just in time for the "weighment". The pickers all work by carrying a small bag with them as they pick and then depositing the tea in the small bag in a larger sack as the day goes on. Both of these bags are carried on the back by a strap over the forehead, traditional Indian style. Once around lunch and once at the end of the day each pickers bag is emptied into a large truck which is taken to the factory. When the truck pulls up an army of pickers scurries out of the garden, all laden with huge sacks of tea. As each bag is emptied it is weighed on a scale and the "Sadar", or supervisor, makes out a slip of paper that is handed to the picker. The pickers are required to pick 25kg of leaves in order to make their daily wage, then are compensated per kilogram above that. Considering after half a day the bags were all weighing about 30kgs, and one strapping young guy had a 54kg bag, it seemed to be a good day for the pickers.
Also when we were in this area we saw the trap that they had set up for the leopard that was thought to be living in the area. Evidently female leopards will often hide in the garden to have cubs since in the jungle they are likely to be eaten by the males. The problem is that the pickers cannot see the leopard as the pick, so there had been some incidents of mauling in the area. The trap was a cage type, with a smaller cage attached to put a goat into as bait. There was no goat in it at the time as it is only loaded at night. This is the best that they can do right now as it is against the law to shoot a leopard.
After this we went to the tea factory where the raw leaves are turned into the final product. This has to be done quickly as the longer the tea leaves sit around unprocessed the lower the quality of the tea. First the tea leaves are unloaded from the truck and loaded into a 50cm deep layer in the drying machine. The machine is like a big wind tunnel with a mesh floor that the tea sits on. Twelve hours or so later it has lost 30% of its weight and is unloaded. The tea is then ground into little balls in a series of knife rollers (leaf tea is made in a different process) then spread in a thin layer on the floor. This is called the fermentation, and during the one hour or so the tea is on the floor it changes color from bright green to the grey we are familiar with. Next the tea is dried to completion in large furnaces. The tea is then filtered and sorted into various grades of fineness, from course to dust. The tea is tasted, much like wine, every hour by the manager for quality control. Waste is also filtered out that is sold as fertilizer or to industrial caffeine manufactures.
The factory itself looked like another British era creation with lots of exposed belts and even a coal fired furnace for the drier. The thing that was impressive here was that all the leaves need to be processed immediately after they are picked. Now was a prime growing season so this factory was working 24/7 and has processed 48,000kg of tea leaves the day before we arrived.
That evening we were invited to have dinner with the current manager of the estate at his bungalow. The manager is a Anglo-Indian man who Rakesh had known for a long time and everyone called Timmy. His bungalow was smaller then the massive estate that we were staying on, but still extremely large and surrounded by an impeccable garden. It also had a large staff that was quick with the tea and drinks when we arrived. Also at the dinner was Timmy's wife, named Yasmin, and their very western daughters who were home from boarding school, as well as the Sikh assistant manager and his family.
For a while we were just hearing some stories of what goes into running the estate. The job certainly has some appeal in its luxurious perks and colonial English feel. The downsides are also there, with having to get up in the middle of the night to fix things at the factory high on the list. The thing that was most impressive was the amount of responsibility that the manager has. Despite the fact that the laws of the country still apply, the manager in many ways serves as the lord of this manor. In fact, there is a time set aside every week where he arbitrates domestic disputes and makes ruling for which there is no appeal process. The skills required are more diverse then any job that we previously thought existed. Where else can someone be an agricultural manager, magistrate, factory manager, wild animal chaser, etc.
We would see some of this constant excitement soon as a few servants scuffled in and told us that there were wild elephants in the garden right near the fence of the bungalow. As soon as Timmy offered to drive us out to take a look, Dave, Susan, Nisha and I all put down our beers and cocktails and piled into the managers SUV. The assistant manager also piled in the back and was told to keep watch for any elephants approaching from the back of the car.
The night was misty, but with a full moon, and we stained to see out into the dark, not aided by the smoke of Timmy's often present cigarette. As we pulled onto the first jeep track I spotted a silhouette of an elephant in the distance. We stopped quickly and I shined the flashlight on him, but only Nisha was able to see him before he bounded away. At this point I thought the excitement was over, but soon we saw the behinds of numerous elephants emerging from the garden to walk down the jeep track in front of us, directly in the headlights. We stayed at least 100m away and followed this heard for a little while. The herd consisted, but our count, of three adult females and five adolescent and baby elephants.
We lost them over a little rise in the road and when we topped the rise they were no longer visible. Then, the assistant manager spoke quickly and we realized that the heard was now sick of us following them and was 100m away in the garden, heading in the opposite direction, doubling back on us. We got a good look at the train of elepahants as they strode by, doing a fair amount trumpeting and breaking a lot of branches underneath their feet. Timmy made the call that observation time was over and stepped on it before we angered the heard any further. The fog obscured the road on the direct way home, making it unsafe with all the elephants about, so we returned by navigating the maze of jeep tracks that traverse the garden, which Timmy and the assistant manager all knew like the back of their hands. We also encountered a truck and three men who Timmy told us were the "Elephant Patrol", we stopped to tell them where the elephants were and they headed off to try to disperse them with their loud firecrackers and drums.
Dinner was rather sedate after all the excitement, but the food was good and we certainly headed back to our bungalow thinking that this was a pretty exciting night. Not everywhere can elephant chasing be part of the dinner party entertainment.
The next day we headed off early in the morning to go to Gangtok, in Sikkim, for the night and then returned the day after. We were only on the estate for a quiet night before heading to the airport, but we did hear an interesting and sad thing. In the day that we were gone a female picker had been mauled by the leopard in the area where we saw the trap a few days before. She was in the hospital and expected to recover. They were looking into getting the leopard declared a "Maneater" so that the forest department could shoot it, but it would probably have to kill someone before that declaration could be made. The multiple maulings in the last several months did not suffice, certainly highlighting the unintended effects of wildlife conservation laws.
As you can tell by the length of this tale it was certainly a memorable experience, a window into a world that most Americans probably think disappeared many years ago. Sarah, Rakesh, Timmy and his wife were all great hosts and we thank them for letting us see this unique, beautiful, relaxing and sometimes tragic place.
Monday, October 1, 2007
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
