Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary

Had a great day at the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary! Periyar is South India's most popular wildlife sanctuary encompassing 777 square kilometres. It contains a 26 square kilometre man-made lake created by the British in 1895. I took an 8 hour hike through the jungle with an Ecotourism company. It was 5 hours of trekking and a 3 hour paddle on a bamboo raft. Some of the wildlife we saw included elephants, wild boar, bison, sambar, monkeys and 2 mating cobras! There are approximately 40 tigers within the reserve but they inhabit the part of the sanctuary that is off limits to people. Only about 60 sq. km. of the 777 sq. km. sanctuary is available to explore. A highlight of the day was a visit with some of the tribal people who were fishing in the lake. As you can see, they use pretty primitive methods for catching their fish. They catch a variety of very small (minnow like fish) which are then dried in the sun and brought to the market to be sold late in the day. Typically they can catch 3 to 4 kilograms of fish per day which they can sell in the markets for 120 rupees (3 Canadian dollars) for the whole family! These were obviously very poor people and lead a life that it hard to believe!