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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. |
