Wildlife and Spice Gardens

On the recommendation of Lonley Planet, we visited a small farm called the Abraham Spice Garden in the town of Kumily near Periyar. It was a delightful tutorial on the way the different spices grow. Get ready for a lesson:


Here we are getting a lesson on where chocolate comes from. We have a wonderful guide who has two little kids himself and enjoys Kobi's antics.


Vanilla beans on the vine.


Powderpuff flowers, grown because they are pretty.


Pineapple -- not quite ready to pick.

Here in the Cardamom Hills, many farmers have a bit of cardamom forest. Cardamom grows at the base of 12 foot leafy plants under the shade of larger trees. The larger trees are often hosts for vanilla or pepper vines and the whole place is interspersed with beautiful flowers and various other things like pineapple plants. It's a magical light and dark world and it would make a great place to play hide and seek.


Kobi wanders in the cardamom forest.


Tenzin on the forest path


Maggie looks up into the canopy in the cardamom forest.


Later in the afternoon we went on a boatride in the Periyar Tiger Preserve. We didn't see any tigers or elephants, but there were several monkeys in the parking lot!


The black monkey. The first time I saw one, I thought there were children somehow in the trees...they were as big as Karma.


Lunch break at Periyar