Periyar National Park
— — forest leaning over still water at first light.
Not only on a wall.
“A tiger and elephant reserve in the Western Ghats of southern Kerala, drawn around the long artificial Periyar Lake. The lake was made by the Mullaperiyar Dam in 1895; the forest grew back to its edges. Mornings on the water are still and cool, with sambar and gaur drinking at the bank. The base town is Thekkady, about four hours by road from Kochi.
Periyar National Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Periyar National Park covers roughly nine hundred and twenty-five square kilometres of the Western Ghats in Idukki district, southern Kerala. The reserve was declared a Project Tiger reserve in 1978 and a national park in 1982, with its core protected zone covering three hundred and fifty square kilometres. The central feature is Periyar Lake, formed in 1895 when the Mullaperiyar Dam was built across the Periyar River. The base village of Thekkady, where lodges and the boat jetty sit, is reached from Kochi in about four hours by road.
Periyar Lake gives the park its shape. The Mullaperiyar Dam was completed in 1895 by the colonial engineer John Pennycuick to divert water east to irrigation works in Tamil Nadu, and the reservoir flooded a long valley in the Ghats. The forest re-grew to the new shoreline, which is why drowned tree trunks still rise from the shallows. Boat safaris run by the Kerala Forest Department leave from the Thekkady jetty several times a day and draw within sight of the herds that come down to drink at dawn and dusk.
The park is open through the year, but the dry months from October through March hold the most reliable wildlife sightings, when herds gather at the lake. Daily boat safaris depart from the Thekkady jetty in the early morning and afternoon. Guided bamboo-raft trips and forest treks, organised through the Eco-Development Committees of the surrounding villages, reach quieter parts of the reserve. The park records Bengal tigers, Indian elephants, sambar, gaur, and Nilgiri langurs. The nearest large airport is Cochin International, about one hundred and ninety kilometres west by road.