Believe it or not, this part of India can be cold. It's 0530. We're in an open jeep bouncing wildly through the country side. The sun has yet to even show a small hope of arriving. We are freezing. After all these years in the tropics it never occurred to us that we should bring warm clothing. Dave's hands are numb.. Our guide ~ Sajeeve ~ has mercy and stops for coffee. Uhmmm...warm coffee.... and chai for the Judy, along with some warm fluffy naan bread to go with it. Back in the jeep now with the top down and the cold wind making our eyes water... Fun! At daybreak we arrive at the Periyar wildlife sanctuary. We are actually praying that the sun will hurry and come up to warm our cold bones. Sajeeve takes on a whole different personality. The vehicle slows . We drift through the jungle watching for wildlife. Soon a family of Black Monkeys is spotted. Then some antelope...large black squirrels. with extra long wide tails....Then as we sit quietly listening to the sounds of the birds awaking ...Whoosh! Three Great Indian Hornbills flap awkwardly directly overhead (whoop, whoop, whoop!!!). Even Sajeeve is excited. We continue on with more bird and animal encounters. We are still hoping for an elephant or a tiger sighting...We arrive at the forest station where breakfast is prepared for us. The sun has made an appearance and we are starting to thaw. After the meal we are assigned a new guide ~ Eeee ah. He loads us into a boat and we row across the lake and we disappear into the jungle. We see many fresh "signs" of elephants. We even step in some. Judy thought we were really onto some close encounters after we passed by a steaming pile & Eeeah started tip toeing & handed her a stick! Quietly we are led deeper into the dense jungle. The sounds of the birds is a symphony. Just like in the old Tarzan movies. Guess what? Now were HOT! It took about 20 minutes to go from freezing to toasting. We shed some clothing and soon were moving comfortably along the hot steamy trail. We wonder what Eeeah is thinking as he moves gracefully along in his flipflops followed by two big crashing clumsy white people. The trek was beautiful but we didn't spot much wild life. Mostly monkeys, squirrels. Not even a snake.... We stopped for a rest on top of a high hill. You could see the green dense jungle for miles around...stunning. We arrived back at the center in time for a delicious vegetarian lunch. (Dave's starving to death here) The afternoon was spent trying to emulate beached whales on the shady grass. Sajeeve, our jeep guide picked us back up for the return trip to our hotel. This time the trip through the jungle was much warmer. We were able to stand up in the back and watch the panorama of this place unfold. Our guide would turn off the motor and coast for down hill runs. Silently, we would float along watching for wildlife. We were loosing all hope for a sighting when the vehicle stops. Sajeeve looks up and says ELEPHANTS!.....Our blood stream full of adrenalin we look where he is pointing.....Nothing! You're on drugs man, we see no elephants. He hands us the binoculars.....sure enough, ELEPHANTS! A family of 3 are moving across the grassy hillside in front of us. A second jeep pulls in behind us and for the next hour we have an elephant party. We were the last ones out of the park at 5:58 PM just before closing time (6:00 PM) By 7:00 PM we were back at the hotel and hungry. The hotel restaurant was white table cloths and night birds for background music. Oh yeh, and some sort of food too. (starving here) . Finally back in our room we snuggled under our nice clean sheets and drifted off to sleep with visions of elephants dancing in our heads.....