Travels with my sister

I am now in Thekkady in Kerala at the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary with my sister Paula who came to India to ride around for two weeks on the back of my motorcycle. She must be mad.
It is a cold and dirty day, the first I have had since arriving in India and we got up at 6 in the morning to catch the first tour boat at 7AM. We did catch it and spent a freezing 2 hours sailing around the park on a dirty old tourist boat but we did manage to see a few animals, some boars (of both sexes and all ages), a deer, a bison and 3 jackals tearing apart the carcass of a dead deer and the trip was calm and the scenery breathtaking (forgive me if in the continuation of this I use that word again but the last few days have been filled with breathtaking sights) so despite the cold a good time was had by all. Tomorrow we are going trekking and rafting through the park and we will definately take jackets!
Before coming here we spent 3 days in Munnar which is due east from Cochin but high up in the mountains and is a major tea growing area. The drive from Cochin to Munnar took us from the teeming city of the coast on a long winding, climbing road to high up in the mountains where it gets really cold (I ended up buying a jacket! Me, who never feels the cold). As we were entering Munnar I saw Gali (from Hampi and Cochin) by the side of the road and she sent us to the Aida hotel which was lovely with a great view out into the mountains and tea fields (fields?) which are breathtakingly beautiful even when you notice the tens of Indian women bending over and doing backbreaking labour so that we can all have our cuppa when we feel the urge, in fact they even add a certain rustic, pastoral beauty to the whole scene. Yup, thats what they do, add romance, I hope they never find a way of doing it mechanically
On the way from Cochin the view was breathtaking and we met our first close-up elephant who was a working stiff, it was pulling along a log right through the center of a little town. Along the way were many beautiful homes but one stood out, they kept a pet elephant! I would love to have one too.
From Munnar to Thekkady was just over 100 kms but it took us about 5 hours due to both the difficulty of the road - narrow winding, climbing, descending, potholefilled and various traffic coming at you from all directions at all angles and at sometimes death defying speeds. But the route was magnificent and we stopped often to take pictures! And more pictures! And then still more pictures. Of course when I print them out to put in albums I no longer remeber wher they were taken!!
Today was a shitty day for me, we booked and went on a bamboo-rafting and hiking tour through the reserve and I saw no bllody animals except for one deer and I was expecting to see elephants frolicing along the river banks or at the least doing the dance intro for The Simpsons show. Nada, nothing, zilch, I was screwes, I wanted to see elephants. I suddenly felt sympathy for all those Americans who stand there yelling "But I paid to see elephants (pigs, cucumbers, pine tres, factories or whatever). I thought that if I was paying the Indian equivalent of two weeks worth of a working mans wages, at the very least I should see one lousy pachyderm! I will never go to another Indian game resrve, never.
Tomorrow we are off to Kollayam to visit and cruise the famous backwaters of Kerala.
Wait for the next exciting episode - I will be back.