Topslip

This is an even more dated post than the ones from our up north trip, but we were just traveling too much to be able to update our blog.  Anyways, back in January from the 1st to the 7th we took a trip down south to Tamil Nadu one of the two most southern states of India.  Joanna (Sara’s sister) was visiting India then and she came along with us.  The train ride down was a pretty uneventful 28 hours but we arrived in Coimbatore (a large travel hub) and caught a bus right to our destination Pollachi.  We checked right into our hotel and caught another bus to Topslip National Park.  It was a little bewildering to go from an overnight train at 7am and end up in a beautiful national park by noon. 

The park was absolutely beautiful.  It is situated up in the mountains and is home to monkeys, Sambar deer, elephants, tigers and the like.  We took a 3 hour safari hike with a guide.  He didn’t speak much English, but showed us a good time as we tromped through the jungle.  Though we didn’t see any tigers, we did see a Sambar deer (that had a loud bark), black monkeys, jungle fowl (a glorified chicken) and bunch of beautiful birds.  Our safari took us off the beaten path and deep into the jungle where we were all not too sure if our guide knew where he was going but he got us back safe and sound.  We then took a bus through the park and into an elephant camp.  The elephant camp was just a village where there were a few domesticated elephants that the villagers brought into the park for elephant rides.  At the end of the day we were waiting for a bus to take us down the mountain, but instead of a city bus, there was a party bus with cushy velvet seats and flashing lights all around.  There was no one else on the bus but the six of us and one more tourist named Mark from Canada.  It made for an interesting close to the day.

We actually went back to the park on the third day and took another three hour safari.  We took a different route and had a different guide (named Baby).  Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how beautiful the park was…

 

Here are a family of warthogs near the park office with a monkey looking on.

These two were taken from the bus on our way up to Topslip.

 

These are some pictures from our safari.  This was the first time Joanna was able to touch an elephant!

Some of the crazy flowers we saw on the hike

One of the views from our hike, one of the few times we weren’t in the dense forest with the bizarre trees that twisted and turned everywhere

This is the elephant camp/village which we got to in this sweet van (notice Joanna near the back with a very excited expression).