Chocolate on the hoof!

Today we have been for a trek in the 'jungle' that makes up the Periyar Wildlife(Tiger) Sanctuary. Needless to say we didn't see any tigers but it was interesting though things were too high in the trees to get good shots. We saw black monkeys ( much larger than the ones at our hotel) and a Malabar Squirrel which was huge. We also saw leeches though we had been provided with protection for our feet and the guide regularly sprinkled us with tobacco powder as apparently they don't like it.
Later in the day we visited a spice plantation which had lots of fascinating things growing in amongst lush flowers. These are cocoa pods but we also saw pepper, coffee, cardomom, tiny fire cracker peppers and some interesting vegetables as well as rubber production.

Perhaps the best sight of the day was at dusk when hundreds of Fruit bats from the bamboo plantation opposite our hotel flew around our heads for about 10 minutes. Huge and fascinating but very hard to capture.