Though I’ve written more than my fair share of recent blogs, I must also write about our time in Kerala because Brian contracted a gnarly bug as we travelled to India from Cambodia and his fever occluded his ability to form memory during this period. This will be a one-sided account, for this, I apologize.
One of many waterfalls we saw in Munnar
Returning to India was central to our Asia travel plans since a) there is SO much to see there and b) we loved our trip in fall of 2016. We decided where to go through a bidding war of our top choices and ended up with a far south to far north path headed east. Our first stop was Kerala, a state running along the south western coast of India, the Malabar Coast. It is famous for its natural beauty and uniquely different cultural identity. We arranged for a three night tour of the area as it is always wise to arrange for a driver, at minimum, when traveling around India with an end destinations in mind. Our pick-up point was in Kochi, our second Kochi of the trip, also known as Cochin. We dozed the first hour or two of the ride (our flight landed after midnight) and when we awoke we saw that we had already begun our descent into foggy the mountains. Much to my surprise, there was Christian iconography everywhere with the ferocious tackiness of the American Bible Belt — bumper stickers, oversized crucifix jewelry, embarrassing billboards, the works! This was quite a contrast to the previous night while, waiting for our Kochi connection in Bangkok, a mentally unstable man of Hindu persuasion began screaming at a group of other Indian men who he assumed were Muslim and warranted his religiously-driven rage. When I went to the attendants at the check-in desk to ask if they were going to do something about the disturbed man aggressively spitting at these quiet businessmen I was told, “Oh, we’ve called security and they’re on their way. They’ll be here in just 15 minutes!”. Comforting.
Sophie surrounded by hills of tea trees. Yeah, those are trees!
Anyways, we quickly learned that Kerala’s slogan is “Kerala: God’s Own Country” referring to the astounding beauty of the waterfalls, mountain vistas, and spectacular sunsets, as well as the God lovin’ folk who dwell here. Along the way to the lodge we would be staying in, we stopped to visit an ayurvedic garden where a guide should us dozens of different herbs, spices, and fruits used to heal everything from arthritis to obesity. He gave us fresh peppercorns and star anise to chew as we wandered through the humid garden. From the top of a centralized treehouse you could see the neighboring elephant habitat and spiders as large as saucers spinning their webs high up in the trees. Personally, I was glad to learn about the various ayurvedic medicines, but we’ll get to the reason why in a bit.
Foggy lookout point along the road in Munnar
Once we reached our lodge in Munnar, a hill station famous for tea plantations, we quickly regrouped with some horrifying purple “welcome” juice and continued to ride up the mountain to Eravikulam National Park. At the entrance we were herded onto a bus and driven up windy, mist-shrouded paths to a visitors center. We quickly realized that we were the only international tourists here when family after family pointed at us and pulled out their phones. I’m not exaggerating when I say I must be in at least 100 phones from just that one afternoon. Some people were bolder, especially young men, and they’d request a photo with me, which would inevitable turn into a fifteen minute photo shoot complete with different poses and posse rearrangements. Brian was too ill to trek up the park path, so I ended up engulfed in several “baby’s first pic with white girl” photo ops and a selfie exhibition with an army of tweens. At one point I said to them, “Ok, one more photo,” and they responded with, “No problem, five more minutes, ok.” “No, not ok. I’d really like to see the park before the sun sets.” “Ok, ok. Two more photos.”
A Nilgiri Thar just hanging out in the park
Eventually, I did indeed see a small portion of the park which has spectacular rolling green hill views and is home to the endangered Nilgiri Thar, a type of horned goat creature that chills with park guests like NBD. And in the moment that people were crowding around to snap pictures of these animals did I finally empathize with their experience as a simple creature to be ogled at for but an instant…
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That night, God came to God’s Own Country in the form of the most terrific thunderstorm I have ever seen. Our room at the lodge had a window facing the valley and I spent the evening watching the sky turn every shade of gray, blue, and white one could imagine. It was terrifying and amazing. Meanwhile, Brian almost died from his spiking fever. Ah, the joys of travel.
The next day, our driver took us back into the heart of Munnar to see the sites. The first was a tea factory/museum that had a wildly disordered collection of semi-relevant newspaper clippings and an informational video from the 80’s about how progressive this tea plantation was because they paid their female employees. Afterwards, an older Indian gentleman gathered 100 visitors into an empty loft to discuss bowel habits and the benefits of drinking tea (those two points were not connected). In a word, this is a “must-see”.
A hanging network of scarlet clock vine was my favorite part of the botanical garden
Next we went to a small botanical garden which had a really vibrant assortment of flowers, including a large orchids display. But then a school bus of teenage boys appeared and we had to flee like they were the paparazzi. I was still traumatized from Eravikulam. On our way to the next location, our driver pulled over to show us a hornet’s nest the size of a mid-sized SUV. That was pretty frightening. After a few more erroneous stops, we finally made it to the top of the hill station where, had it not been so foggy, we would have had a view of rolling tea tree covered hills and neighboring Tamil Nadu. Instead, we just explored the desolate little village and had some chai since this was the first cool climate we’d been to in many moons.
This image captures life in rural India pretty well I think
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The next day we rode down the mountain, all the way to the famous backwater channels of Kerala. Here we were ushered onto a private house boat and we set sail down vibrant waterways lined with villages all just about to tumble right into the water.
We docked for the night shortly before sunset and were told we could go for a wander. At first we headed off down a dirt path through some fields. Soon, we realized that there was dramatic movie music coming from somewhere and everywhere all at once out in the middle of this deserted landscape. Up close, I thought I could see a small speaker nestled in a coconut tree, but that may have been my imagination. We pressed on a bit, but when we could stand the creepiness anymore, we walked back towards the water and then set off on another spur of path towards the village, which consisted of about six huts. We were immediately engulfed in a sea of small, cheerful children asking for candy. When we told them we didn’t have any candy, they switched to chanting for pens. When we told them we didn’t have any pens, they switched to chanting for pencils. When we finally convinced them there was not a secret trove of anything but used tissues in our pockets, they were heartbreakingly disappointed and I will never forgive myself.
Brian on the path with the source-less music
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Back on the boat, we watched vampire bats swoop overhead as the sun sank into a horizon awash in so many shades of pink that even Barbie would have said it was garish. Once it got dark out, we were surprised when our hosts drew our attention to a flat screen TV in the main cabin that was hooked up to a satellite on the roof. As it was Halloween, we watched a horror film that was edited according to the standards of the Indian government’s Department Of What Is Acceptable Viewing Material. This meant that absolutely nothing scary happened in the movie, nor did the hacked together remaining storyline make any sense.
A view of the sea from the promenade by Fort Cochin
To round out our time in Kerala, we spent our last day exploring the city of Kochi, primarily wandering along the water by the Chinese Fishing Nets and exploring Fort Cochin. There was plenty more to see, but we were overheated and not feeling very well. By the time we reached the airport to head elsewhere in India, I had contracted a full blown case of food poisoning. Since women in much of India are still treated as second class citizens, there were only a few bathroom stalls for hundreds of women and I ended up needing to vomit in public trash bins because I couldn’t reach a toilet through the crowded queues. After several mad dashes across the terminal, a woman came up to me and asked if I was the white woman who was having stomach troubles. Indeed, must be me. She asked if I had tried any ayurvedic medicines yet — I had not — so she led me over to her bag where she withdrew several small plastic pouches of dried plant matter. Had I been conscious at this point I would have remembered not to take drugs, even natural drugs, from strangers. But alas, my brain wasn’t even remotely connected to my sweaty, partially collapsed body and I let the woman fill my outstretched palms with cardamom pods and cloves. I was ordered to chew them and spit out the husks, and that I would instantly return to full health. At this point, I would try anything to quit heaving before boarding a tiny, bouncing plane in India.
They didn’t work.
-Sophie
idaknowwheretogo (I don't know where to go!) 