Today was an adventure. We woke up at 5 am and ate nutrigrain bars in a lackadaisical haze, unsure of what to expect. Then we boarded a series of rickshaws and started off toward the Periyar Tiger Reserve. In 1895, the Periyar Lake was created when a dam called the Mullaperiyar Dam was built in Thekkady across the Periyar River, which put 10 square miles underwater, thus creating what is now the Periyar Lake. In 1935, 232 square miles around the lake where classified as a wildlife sanctuary. Since then the reserve land has increased in size to make up a grand total of 300 square miles and it was dubbed a “tiger reserve” in 1978. The sanctuary is supposedly a prime example of how humans playing with nature don’t always ruin it, but can sometimes better the ecosystem. In this instance the lake, which formed has proved vital to the animals in the neighboring area. However, there are also growing concerns about the impact of tourism on the preserve. Approximately 34 square miles out of the entire preserve area have been opened to the public with limited access. There have been allegations that staff members of the preserve have illegally fished in the protected area. When the area is so frequented by tourists do the environmental benefits of having this preserve still outweigh the negative impact of human visitors?
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Our group went to check out the reserve for ourselves and personally experienced the mad rush of a ritual that precedes a morning boat tour on the Periyar Lake. We were informed that we would need to race from the park entrance to the docks where we would try to secure boating tickets. I run cross-country for St. Lawrence so I was looking forward to a chance to race the masses. Apparently the morning boat tour was so popular that securing a ticket ended up being a test of survival of the fittest. It turned out that I was in one of the two diesel-fueled rickshaws that were faster and therefore were selected to be the racecars. Mine was readjusted, after many deliberations to include Anil (our translator/scholar), Professor Jayman, Paige, and me. After a period of waiting, the drivers turned on their cars, buses, and rickshaw engines, and the race began. Our rickshaw took over a bus right off the bat and then continued to cut off other vehicles. The driver warned us that he would use the speed bumps to go faster instead of to slow down. I got smashed into the side of the rickshaw several times. No one was obeying the rules of the road, especially the signs, which encouraged visitors not to honk for the sake of the tigers. It was every man for himself and it seemed like we were about to crash a number of times as we cut off other vehicles. As a smaller blonde female, I was at a disadvantage immediately. Finally we completed the 15 km racecourse and the 200 m sprint began.
The vehicles were stopped in every which way all over the parking lot, avoiding the outlined spots all together and blocking out previously parked vehicles. There was, a little ways up, a fork in the road. The boys who were in the other lead rickshaw had turned left, but a rickshaw driver called out to me a warning that the correct direction was actually down the road on the right side. So I screamed out to the boys, without having time to verify that they had actually heard me, while continuing on to the left. As we rounded the top of the hill and jetted past what looked to be a main office building, I saw a bunch of people, who had been ahead of Paige and me, slow down. We were able to overtake them and came upon a set of steep stairs leading down to a ticket booth.
On the right hand side was a metal structure resembling a squeeze chute for cattle. The fencing was claustrophobic; it was just tall enough to make it next to impossible for anyone to climb out and it would be difficult for wider set people to turn around backwards or even sideways. I had to make a split second decision to either descend the stairs on the left of the structure to see what lay beyond or to take my chances and enter the cattle gates. The cattle gates appeared to be more promising and we were soon proved correct. They served as a means of organizing people and ensuring order in the otherwise chaos of a situation. Paige and I snagged what appeared to be the 7th and 10th positions in line. We were informed that only 250 people- in 50 person groups could make the first boat which runs from 7:30am-9: 30am each day. Tickets ended up being 150 rupees apiece and each person was allotted two tickets. We arranged the party of names, for our group, in alphabetical order and decided who would be responsible for which names. Luckily, it turned out that we had enough people in the top part of the line to secure positions for all of the other people in our 16-person group.
Afterward, I walked toward the water and was accosted by a flock of about 30 local people wanting to take pictures with me because of my skin and hair colors. Our entire group, especially the women, has been targeted for photo shoots. We are treated like celebrities and the local people thank us graciously after we pose for pictures with them. It seemed like we were almost a bigger attraction than the actual animals living in the animal reserve. After this hoopla, we paid a small fee for carrying cameras and boarded the boat.
We had assigned seats and I was frustrated to be in an inner seat since I was one of the first people in line to buy tickets, but there appeared to be a system and an order to the seating. Another student was right behind me and we tried to trade seats with our neighbors so that we could sit together. We awkwardly mimed and spoke slowly, explaining that we were friends and wanted to sit next to each other. This charade went on unsuccessfully for quite sometime. Finally, getting frustrated with the language barrier, the other student grabbed my hand and said that we were together, miming intimacy. At this point, the guy holding the coveted seat said something along the lines of “ I understand English. I just don’t want to give up my seat”. So, in the end, the joke was on us.
Ironically, right after this conversation ended, another group of people with debatably the best seats on the entire ship asked to trade with us. The reasoning was that one of their group members was handicapped and couldn’t make it up the steep stairs to the upper deck, so this revelation was bittersweet. Two teenaged boys snagged the seats that were supposed to be for two more people from our group and refused to acknowledge that we were saving the seats. However, they ended up being a valuable source of information later on in the trip so it was all for the best. ![]()
We secured our massive orange life vests and buckled down for the ride, which was beautiful, but anticlimactic after our intense experience to get to the boat. We got to tour around the harbor and to see a pack of elephants as well as a variety of birds. At the very end I ended up talking to one of the boys named Jaisper. He grew up in Kerala, but has been to Mumbai and was shocked at how bad the garbage was when he visited there. He said that, in Kerala, citizens must use trashcans because the police uphold a law for this, which includes a hefty fine. He said that the high literacy rate in Kerala helps it to be a cleaner/ more environmentally friendly place. I asked if littering came about more due to a lack of education or because people quite simply didn’t care and he affirmed the latter. Ironically, just as he was explaining that Kerala is so much better than Mumbai we passed some trash on the banks of water, that we were boating in, which is part of the wildlife preserve.
Overall, our venture was highly successful; we traveled by rickshaw, foot, and boat to see wild elephants, cormorants, snakefish, and kingfishers. However, this came at a cost. The boat’s noise scares animals away and the presence of tourists causes added trash concerns. Additionally there was an accident two years ago when the people on board got excited by animals and all moved to one side of the boat to get their pictures. The boat tipped and over forty people drowned. The humans present were an issue for this reason and in a sense almost acted as the wildlife themselves, in their overzealous rush to see the true animals. Likewise I acted as an animal, as a source of entertainment for them.
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Check out the preserve here: http://www.periyartigerreserve.org/
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar_National_Park and
Eyewitness Travel Book: India London: Dorling Kindersley, 2008.
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