Found 15kms outside Munnar, Eravikulam was declared a sanctuary in 1975 and upgraded in 1978 to a national park, in part due to its unique flora and fauna. We went at the wrong time to see the enigmatic Neelakurunji, a plant which produces its carpet of blue flowers every 12 years (go there in 2014 for the next viewing) but we did see the fabulously rare Nilgiri Tahr, the only species of Caprine ungulate (look that up in your Funk and Wagnall’s) found south of the Himalayas. There are around 2,500 left of this friendly wild mountain goat in the world, ensuring its place among the status of ‘endangered’ in the WWF list of rare animals.
We arrived at the park excited at the prospect of seeing rare goats. In addition to nature’s gifts, it is home to Anamudi (2690m), the highest peak in India south of the Himalayas. We were not allowed to walk up the mountain path, so along with everyone else ascended the foothills aboard the park bus. We jumped off with about 40 domestic tourists at the high entrance point. We were not allowed to deviate from the path. We were told to keep quiet so as not to upset the wildlife. We could not pass go. Fair enough.
Accompanied by families of screaming children scrambling in the undergrowth, shouting groups of men and chattering women in bejewelled thong sandles and saris, we tried to pretend we were at one with nature. A Nilgiri Tahr crossed the carefully designated pathway in front of us ignoring the noise: the 25 species of other mammals, 132 species of birds, 101 species of butterflies and 19 species of amphibians recorded in the Park kept their distance. An abrupt end to the path made it clear we would not be allowed any further, ending our dream of a decent shot at climbing the highest peak in southern India.
A little disappointedly we returned down the hill-path, trying to find a moment of tranquility among the tourist madness. Anyone who has visited India will know this is never an easy task. We gave up at the bus drop-off point, and, in a last ditch effort to find some serenity in the beautiful surroundings, decided to walk back to the bottom. Fat chance. A guard shooed us back up the hill and we joined a heaving bus of tourists back to the park entrance.
Oh well, we saw the goats.

Idukki, Forest Information Centre, Wildlife Warden's Office, Munnar PO, Kerala 685 612, India
+91 4865 231 587
Google map: bit.ly/xjyUeq

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Munnar, Kerala’s best known hill station, is set in a land of undulating hills blanketed by tea estates. But beware, in this dreamy landscape death lurks at every turn.
High up in the valley, under the cool shade of a cardamom plantation, I asked the guide if we could take a stroll into the rain forest. Nitish swiveled his eyes, carefully avoiding mine.
“Madam, there were wild elephants here yesterday.”
In the white heat of the tea estates women sliced fragile new shoots from the tips of shrubs, their razor-sharp shears specially adapted to catch the crop with each snip. Others heaved sacks as big as boulders onto a truck. A man sat in the shade, perfunctorily supervising the women’s work.
Wild elephants? Aren’t they one of the attractions here? I tried an encouraging smile, my excitement fading as he explained the danger.
“Angry elephants will charge and trample everything in their way, madam, including you.”
Stunted and pruned to within an inch of their lives, tea shrubs are packed tightly in manicured rows, like a green candlewick bedspread draped over the rumpled hillsides. Dotted around the slopes, shade-giving acacia trees perforate the swaddled fields. The women moved carefully between the bushes.
I glanced at the forest, now dripping with malevolence under its latticework of branches. Myna birds shrieked and glistening tropical flowers pierced the gloom. A shadow shifted in the darkness and a crazed string-puppet butterfly, the size of a bat, lurched out of the gloom.
Nitish, heartened by my hesitation, warned of foxes in these parts. I shrugged, Fantastic Mr Fox didn’t frighten me.
“If they are hungry they will attack you.”
Unlike the sly tricksters of childhood fairy tales, it seems Indian foxes are wild and ferocious, “like small Alsation dogs.” My naïve Jemima Puddle-Duck persistence faltered.
A muffled shriek from the tea fields stopped us dead in our tracks.
Nitish smiled as he went in for the kill, “also, madam, there are snakes.”
The next day we visited The Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company tea museum, where monochrome images of puny white men holding guns, each with a foot planted on a dead tiger, were hung in the corridors. We watched a short, and surprisingly interesting, film about the history of the area, then walked through the displays. It is a working museum, and you can walk through the whole process from the leaves arriving to buying your souvenir bag of tea at the end.
A sign on the wall told us that schools and crèche facilities are provided for its families by the local tea cooperative. Remembering yesterday’s scream, I asked a manager if labouring in the plantations could be dangerous.
“Certainly, our workers get bitten by the occasional snake, but we carry anti-venom and are able to treat bites immediately.”
He informed us that all visitors to India should learn how to identify poisonous snakes.
“If you are attacked you must tell the doctor which snake bit you, so the correct anti-venom can be administered.”
Now, I reckon I can recognise an angry cobra, but with over 270 species of snake in India I decided I should keep my camera handy. If avoidance tactics don’t work, the only way I’m going to be able to explain which would-be slithery assassin has bitten me is to take its photo. Smile please.

www.kdhptea.com/TeaMuseum.html
KDHP House, Munnar-685 612, Kerala
+91-4865 230561

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