Day 57: hiking through the Nilgiri hills

We awoke at the crack of dawn today (before, actually) to head out on a Jeep safari through Mudumalai National Park, followed by a long tramp through the jungle that covers these hills. It's ordinarily important to start early in order to catch the wild elephants out on the roadside before they retire back to the forest for their mid-morning naps. Today started out cool and cloudy in the valleys though, so the elephants skipped their morning constitutional. While it kept the elephants away, the weather afforded some dramatic views of the clouds from the top side as we drove down the mountain. By mid morning, India's bright sun had burned through, and it was clear for the rest of the day. We saw a huge herd of spotted deer, some bison, and a number of wild pigs.

Mike, our guide, was like old Ooty personified. The son of an Indian father and a British mother, he spoke immaculate English, and in fact, I initially figured him for an ex-pat. But he was raised in Bangalore, and spent his summers in Ooty as a child. Mixed with the British sensibilities, he carried a healthy dose of Indian mysticism, telling us stories of clairvoyance, snake charming and black magic.

On our tramp through the jungle, Mike gave us a quick briefing on what to do if you get charged by a wild elephant-the first charge is usually a feint, and you should hide. If the elephant charges a second time, it's for real, and you should run like hell. Trekking in elephant country has become more perilous in recent years because resort development has increasingly cut the elephants off from the streams and pools they use to bathe and drink. Elephants are intelligent creatures, and they are starting to get annoyed. One of them is said to have been seen hanging out on a particularly steep section of the mountain road, waiting for mopeds to pass so that he could charge them and give them a good scare. We entered the jungle armed with big firecrackers, but a bazooka would have been a much better comfort... Needless to say, we made it back out without getting trampled. The biggest animal we spotted on foot was a giant squirrel, about the size of a medium cat.elephant bones we found in the jungle

After returning from our tramp we drove over to one of the tribal villages. Mike tells us that in these places, the men all work as mahouts, working the elephants for the forest service, and the women do pretty much everything else, sometimes supplementing the family's meager income by picking eucalyptus leaves for the oil distilleries in the area.We lunched on takeaway biryani on some rocks down in the river, and by the time we were through, the little village was bustling. Women were beating clothes on the rocks, while others stood in the river wrapped in sheets, discretely bathing themselves. Meanwhile, the elephants were all heading back in with their mahouts for an afternoon bath and scrubdown-reward for a hard morning's work. On the other bank we spotted a big wild peacock, strutting around and looking fine.This way of life will probably not exist in another 30 years or so. Already, they have started to make extra money taking tourists out on basket rides. Eventually the tourist economy will supplant what little industry they have here. I feel fortunate to have seen it here before it gets replaced by the Disney version of itself.