Wander Woman

Kerala is the land of elephants,apart from being God's own country. Elephants are privately owned and used(for lack of a better word)for temple festivals(Thrissur Pooram). Elephants are very important for temple festivals. Without them,any festival is incomplete.It made me wonder about the origins of this ritual. This was probably initiated(by some very wise men) so that elephants dont end up on the endangered species list. So, On a bright sunny day, we set out for Kodanad Elephant training camp. Here elephants are trained to transport logs and do other types of work. We were told that we could bathe the elephants and play with them. We couldnt do that because we reached at the wrong time. Still it was nice to see the pachyderms. What was a little disturbimg was the "Kraal ". This is a sort of wooden cage where the elephants are kept. We did see a baby elephant inside one of them. Then we went to the river.Periyar. One of the best things I like about Kerala is its greene

Neil is a small island located a few miles away from Port Blair. Its also an hour away from Havelock. Neil is a very small island surrounded by the most beautiful corals.They say, one of the main reasons why this island was not very affected by the Tsunami tidal waves is because of the corals which stopped the waves from hitting the island. The water around this island is a mesmerising blue,also because of the corals which keep filtering the water. And the marine life!!You dont even have to dive to see that.A few metres off the beach and a snorkelling kit.In fact you can see the fishes and eels right from the jetty. You dont even have to go into the water. We started for Neil on a rain drenched morning with fear that the ferry might be cancelled because of weather conditions. Visibility was nil and the ferry was almost called off.After waiting for an hour, we finally set sail. It was dark all around and we couldnt see anything around.I've been to Neil twice after that in more plea