Halo Backwaters have put together a great trip for us - Philip is there waiting to collect us from the houseboat to drive us up to the cool Hill Station of Munnar. We head up into the mountains past waterfalls, rivers and tea plantation after tea plantation. Its a beautiful drive and again shows the contrasts that exist throughout India. Even the driving is slightly better in this part of the country, although, there are still plenty of hair raising moments!
Meeta and Graham arent due into Munnar until late, so once we get checked into our hotel, we're out for a curry and early to bed.
Next morning we are up early for a day of sight seeing. The whole area has stunning scenery, cloudy mountain tops, with tea bushes for miles and miles. We start the day at the local garden centre. The climate in this region offers perfect growing conditions for all types of flowers and plants - its just like an English country garden really, but once again, Luce & I are the main attraction for the locals. One baby girl in particular is transfixed by us, her brown eyes wide in bewilderment at these white noses. She is handed over for the obligatory picture, which opens the door for the other family to ask the same, but the slightly older boy is terrified by Luce and streams in terror! After a brief stop to watch some ladies picking tea we pass by a dam and a Lake keeping an eye out for wild elephants who roam this part of the forest. We dont see one, but see the dung that proves they do exist! We stop off at Echo point to shout out at the forest and hear it call back...
Indians are rightly proud of this area, and it is such a contrast to the rest of the dusty country, but it reminds us of the Lake District, and sadly the weather is also straight out of Cumbria when we reach the top station. What should be stunning views across the Munnar valley is sadly cloud - its like being in a proper pea-soup fog back home, and we cant see 5m in front of us! We decide against trekking through the dense cloud, especially as it starts to rain. They do have delicious road side passion fruit on sale though.
In the afternoon, we head up to the Eravikulam National Park, which is home to a rare Mountain Goat, the Nilgiri tahr, of which there are few pottering around munching on the bushes at the side of the path. After one of the best curries we have had (and also one of the cheapest) we have a beer with Meeta & Graham and the family, and they very politely look at all of our pictures from India - we realise that we need to do a bit of editing before other friends and family endure our travels of the past 4 months!
Its a glorious morning the next day for our drive over to Periyar Nature reserve and the views across the tea plantations are stunning - you certainly wouldn't get those in the Lake District! Its a good 3 hours drive in Philip's classic Ambassador, he is a great guide pointing out bee hives, rubber trees, all sorts of titbits to keep us interested. We stop off for a ride on a elephant - not the most comfortable rides ever, but great fun plodding through the rainforest (sometimes literally) There is a baby elephant celebrating its second birthday who is very very cute, but we cant help feeling that its a little cruel, the amount of space that they have to roam in...
The nature reserve is a bit of a disappointment. We file onto one of the boats for a cruise around the waterways. Its a pretty expensive trip but we get to see some bison, deer, mongeese (mongooses?) and plenty of birds, but we are at some distance from them. However, all is forgotten when we go for Ayurvedic massage - a wedding treat from Meeta and Graham. The warm oil dripping on your head is a lot more relaxing than it sounds, and is to be recommended to everyone. If we had any stresses, they would have been lifted instantly. Its all that we can manage to have a curry and wonder how we are going to manage without a daily curry fix...
The next and final stop on our Keralan tour is Kumarakom, and we are back down near the hot and sticky backwaters. Its been nice to be up in the hills and get some cooling air, but we are looking forward to getting back to the sun, and away from weather more typical of the UK. Philip once again has some treats up his sleeve and we stop off at a surprisingly interesting spice plantation, a tea factory (very exciting for Luce) and also get up close to some rubber trees to pull off the sap that goes to make rubber (who would have thought?!) We also strike it lucky and spot a working elephant at the side of the road pulling some logs. The strength and ingenuity is astounding. Using his trunk, he wraps a rope around his jaw (we think, but cant see right inside his mouth.) The other end is chained to an enormous tree trunk, which he then hauls out into the road, and then with traffic carrying on around him, he hauls it along the road. Brilliant, and one of the best things about India - who knows what will be happening around the next corner?
Our last night resort is in beautiful setting next to the backwater, surrounded by palms with houseboats put-putting by. We have a cute cottage overlooking the pool and the water, the weather is the only let down to what would be a fitting final day in India, so instead we get Philip to drive us over to the Taj Hotel to meet Graham, Meeta & Arnie for drinks.
No comments:
Post a Comment