The sun glints through the thick canopy of the ancient evergreen forest, its long fingers revealing a thick cloud of butterflies as they swarm in a dazzling kaleidoscope of jewelled colours. We are entering one of India’s most precious and protected natural reserves – a 50-million-year-old rainforest famed for its unbroken lineage of wildlife, flora and fauna. The multi-layered canopy harbours a plethora of plant and animal species, many of them still being discovered by scientists. The most exciting discovery, I’m told, was a new frog genus found in 2003 that was believed to date back 140 million years to the Jurassic era. Come to think of it, Kerala’s Silent Valley is a bit like a Jurassic Park; how it remained that way is another story.

We are driving into the Valley in a jeep at the behest of my forest-maniac son who has made me travel across the country to savour a single day in this restricted earthly paradise. I grumbled all the way to the airport at 4.30 am and during the interminable, bumpy drive to the Ayurvedic spa resort in which we settled the night before. (The nearest airport is Calicut which is a one-hour drive from the resort. From there it is a two-hour drive into the Valley. Coimbatore Airport is a three-hour drive from the resort.) But now, on this magical morning, rich with the chorus of birds and the bark of monkeys, I feel stupid as I watch the rapt expression of delight on my son’s face.

The Valley is anything but silent. “It was silent once,” insists Yesu, our chatty, forest guide, “because there were no cicadas here for the longest time – the whole forest was so quiet.” Yesu had joined us earlier at the forest office where we had been vetted, warned not to touch anything in the Valley and carry all our litter back with us. My son had been amused to see bundles of confiscated marijuana lying in the ranger’s office; obviously pepper and coffee were not the only plants being cultivated here!

We set off into the vibrant, ancient heart of the Valley in a flurry of trailing butterflies. Looking out of the jeep, I close my eyes and breathe in nature’s bounty. If Kerala is ‘God’s own country’ then Silent Valley, must be God’s own abode. You can feel the ancient spirits of the looming trees that embrace you as you commune silently with the hills and valleys, luring you back to another time and place.

As we traverse the 200-km buffer zone of forest that protects the Valley, we listen to Yesu’s explanation of British attempts to sow the hills with pepper trees and coffee bushes. The plantations are now managed mostly by indigenous Irula and Mudugar tribals, who follow ancient traditions of agriculture and coexistence. Serendipitously, a tribal forester emerges from the bushes just then, wearing little more than a loin cloth, his flat, wrinkled features and matted hair giving him the appearance of an old man, while his body belongs to someone decades younger. I wonder if he communes with those ancient trees honouring the spirits of his ancestors who lived and died here for longer than anyone can remember. He waves in response to our greeting and heads towards a clutch of government-built housing shacks, gifted after attempts at relocation were met with stiff resistance.

We stop suddenly as Yesu has spotted a troop of black Nilgiri monkeys, swinging from the treetops in search of the fruit and nuts that lie thick on the ground. They are very different from their white langur cousins of the north and seem shyer, and more playful. We are still hoping to crown our visit with a sighting of the magnificent Lion-Tailed Macaque, or ‘macaqka’ as the guide calls him, the treasured mascot of this forest. These endangered primates originated six million years ago in West Africa and some now survive in the rainforests of Southern India, with Silent Valley offering sanctuary to 14 troops, as per the last census.

We are now driving through the southern tip of the forest on a dirt track that is all that remains of a road built by the British. It leads to a 200-ft steel watch tower erected by the late Rajiv Gandhi, in the early ’90s. The tower symbolised the end of a raging debate to submerge the pristine valley by damming the Kunthi River – much to the horror of environmentalists like Salim Ali and other NGOs worldwide. Rajiv, who was accompanied by Sonia Gandhi on that visit, laid the controversy to rest by declaring Silent Valley a protected biosphere. And well he might – it is home to elephants, tigers, bears and boars, at least 200 varieties of birds, 400 varieties of butterflies and moths and 200 varieties of wild orchids.

A little short of the watch tower, our guide halts the jeep under a rushing waterfall and urges us to empty our mineral water bottles for the real thing…water fresh and light, aromatic and unpolluted from its ancient source that tastes like none of the metallic and flat varieties of bottled water I have imbibed in my time. We take pictures of wild orchids and more butterflies but as I crouch in the dirt to capture a shot of a distant monkey, Yesu comes running to warn me of other unwelcome forest denizens – leeches. He spatters salt and tobacco around our shoes and urges us back into the jeep.

We arrive a few minutes later at the tower, strategically located on a hillock in the midst of a panorama of encircling peaks. I clamber up the stairs looming over the Kunthi River and hope the structure is sturdier than it looks. The view from the top floor is spellbinding... you can see the blue Nilgiris at 3,000 ft. As I gaze into the majestic palette of greens and blues, I feel once more the spirit of this ancient forest. It beckons from the mysterious slopes and mist-wreathed mountain tops, the cascading waterfalls and the blue ribbon of river that glints along the bottom of the valley. A sunrise here must be magical I think. My reverie is broken by the sharp cry of a child, she is pointing to her father’s foot on which two black leeches have engorged themselves to many times their original size. The man scrambles hastily for a cigarette to burn them – but smoking is prohibited in the forest, and Yesu quickly douses the leeches in tobacco and salt. They shrivel and fall off, leaving a copious stream of blood on the man’s foot. “Funny, I never felt anything,” he said, “until they dropped off”.

The forest is teeming with leeches after the monsoons and I squirm at the thought of the trek ahead. Yesu, seeing my expression, tells me leeches are actually good for bloodletting, as we have known since ancient times. “In Kerala, there are many incidences of snake bites, and local doctors apply leeches to suck out the venom.” I had been studiously avoiding the thought of snakes – my pet phobia – but my son was not going to let me off. “You have to confront your demons mom,” he said, dragging me later to a snake park out of a misguided sense of helpfulness. I had deleted thoughts of the king cobras, cobras and other malevolent serpents infesting the thick forest undergrowth, but now I had to decide if I was going to tempt fate and do the river trek. Too proud to be a wimp in front of my son, I gallantly said I was not afraid of trekking and we head off to meet the river.

Along the track, Yesu points out the spiny remains of a fruit the ‘macqka’ loves to dine on and another place where an elephant herd dined on bamboos. As we follow the trail through tall grass, I deliberately stomp my feet to let the serpents know I’m on their case. As we approach the banks of the Kunthi, Yesu plucks some seeds from a plant growing on a rock: “Eat, very good; no heart trouble, see, Yesu so strong,” he boasts flexing his muscles. His knowledge of medicinal herbs is truly vast and I begin to look at the grasses and weeds as a natural pharmacopoeia from which he can prescribe all sorts of cures. Including the marijuana plant which a fellow passerby has plucked out despite the rules: “Silent Valley marijuana, best in India,” says the guy brandishing his prize. My son is intrigued at the prospect of getting high on 50-million-year-old grass – he says he’s teasing me but I’m not entirely sure.

Our path now borders the river on the right and a dripping, black rock face on the left. Hanging from it are two brilliant tendrils of violet orchids. I have a passion for orchids from my time in Indonesia but I confess, I hesitated to follow Yesu into the thick underbrush where some sunshiny yellow orchids were raising their faces to the wind. More pictures, and then we walk to the rope bridge – only to discover it has been barred for trekking. The guide tells us there are plenty of treks for seasoned trekkers across the river and near the waterfalls and it’s also possible to stay in one of the forest lodges – if you have no objection to sharing your bed with slimy nocturnal visitors. I had opted for the spa resort much to my son’s dismay; he intended to return and stay at the lodge for the ultimate Silent Valley experience.

If you’re looking for big game and adventure you’re better off in Periyar or Bandipur next door, where sightings are easier. In Silent Valley you get to see just a little tip but it’s a good five-hour-round trip and if you want to savour nature as it once was – this is a treat for not just the senses but also the soul.

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