Periyar Lake

We took a boat ride on the lake in the morning.


The boat was full of tourists. Lots of Firangs. Then we has our local Mallu tourists too. I guess this was off season. There was this old rich white couple who had a local guide with mean eyes. We named him 'tiger'. He was constantly going "Kingfisher at 2 O'Clock!!!!!" "xyz-rare-bird at 7 O'Clock!!!!!" .. and the likes ... He wore a full set of WWF gear complete with cap. The white old fart had a DSLR with a freaking big lens hanging from his neck. He liked to stand like some king of monarch with hands on hip to survey the "raj". Other wise he was glued to his binoculars trying to find his long lost relations on the tree tops.

The boat ride was peaceful. We hardly saw anything other than feathered. We had this theory that the game keepers who prodded the game to the lakeshore for the viewing pleasure of the gora tourists had taken an off that day. We could almost imagine a few of them trying in vain to convince a tiger to show his grace for a few seconds to the passing boat ... pleading with promises of rewards of fresh goat meat. Or maybe the animals just decided to stay in the shadows and watch the show the multicoloured tourists put up. Imagine a few bison commenting that our 'tiger' had new bakras as usual.

Heh.