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The wildlife in India has
been amazing and we have already had a few animal planet
moments. So far we’ve seen a Sea Kite catching a snake from
the water, Kingfishers diving at lightning speed next to our
boat, monkeys running through our hotel or jumping into the
bus, huge bats flying overhead after sunset and dolphins
swimming along the beach.
The Western Ghats are the
mountains that start at the bottom of the state of Karnataka
and run south forming the border of between the two most
southern states in India; Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They are
also home to many of India’s national parks and wildlife
sanctuaries. We had planned to visit a few of these parks
but had already heard some horror stories of seeing more
tourists then animals.
After looking through the
guidebook and a little bit of online research we decided
that we would head for the less well known Indira Gandhi
Wildlife Sanctuary. The park is on the Tamil Nadu side of
the Ghats and slightly away from the backpacker route. It
turned out to be a great decision with only a few tourists
around and beautiful scenery. Over the two days there we saw
different types of monkeys and deer, giant squirrels, wild
boar and lots of different birds, unfortunately no big cats
or wild elephants this time.
On the way we also had a
stopover high up in the mountains at Ooty the most famous of
India’s hillstations at 2240m. This is where the posh Brits
used to hide away from the summer heat and became known as
‘Snooty Ooty’. It is also famous for tea and chocolate so we
felt right at home. |
