ATR - Day 95: Arrived at the forest rest house at Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, met the pipeline rats but no wildlife

We arrived at Parambikulam Tiger Reserve from Valparai after an hour long boat-ride only to sleep in the dormitory infested with rats. No wildlife so far.

January 3, 2024

Wednesday, 11:30 PM

Veettikunnu Island Nest,

District Palakkad, 

Kerala, India

We left Valparai for Veettikunnu Island Nest, which is a forest rest house run by the forest department. We have booked this place for two nights, today and tomorrow. We are visiting Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. We are at an island accessible only by boat. So we spent an hour on the boat, sailing towards the island. A local wildlife photographer was to accompany us to the reserve but something came up for him and he could not join us. But the guide he had booked for us met us and we got on board a boat with him and came to Veettikunni Island Nest, but while we were on the way, it started raining, which made the boat-ride much less fun. 

At Veettikunnu, we found that we had a dormitory with six-seven beds put together in a large room that has a roof made of tin shed. This shed is lined with pipes, which are right above our beds. These pipes are pathways for rats, who are making the very most of it for commutation. The night is certainly going to be tough. As for the wildlife, we did not find much today but we were not seriously looking for it today. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. It would not be easy to sleep for sure with all these rats running back and forth right above our heads.