From Coast to Hill Station, Kerala State: January 19

O! Sad day, when we had to leave our little haven at Sona Homestay and make tracks (or in this case, take a rickshaw) to the bus station in Alleppey. We headed for the KSRTC bus station to take a government bus to Munnar, a 5-hour ride scheduled to depart at 2pm. It was pretty hot at this time of the day, in the high 80s and fairly humid, but we waited in the shade with plenty of other travellers, while a miriad of buses pulled in and out of the station. At about 1:50 our empty bus arrived and parked, and at 1:58 we were off! Who says everything is tardy in India? We scrambled onto the rickety-looking bus, stowed our baggage in a space near the driver, and secured seats in about the third row. The bus had more-or-less the appearance of a school bus without glass in the windows. Good air ventilation! On one side of the aisle, the

bench seats were for two, and on our side, for three. It is a tight fit, especially for comparatively large-built people like us. We noted that the seats ahead of us were occupied only by women, except for one European couple who occupied a 2-seat bench and were oblivious to the fact that they were in the women’s seating. Off we went into

the hot, blue yonder. As we traveled the winding, narrow “highway” (NH 49), darting in and out of traffic, passing hurriedly, and honking along the way, people on the bus would pull the bell-cord to indicate that they wanted off, or others along the roadside would hail the bus, and clamber on, barely getting into the doorway before the bus accelerated on its way.

The first two hours of the journey, it was crowded and hot along the way. As people got on and off the bus, sometimes there were quite a few people standing in the aisle, although they usually travelled only between villages so did not have to stand for too long. Dean noticed that their bus fare was often less than 10 rupees, or only several cents. I was seated beside the window and Dean in the “middle” of the 3-seater, and sometimes a man would sit beside him, other times the seat would be left empty

even when several women remained standing. Eventually we came to realize that we, too, were sitting in the women’s-only seating, and it is impossible for an Indian woman to sit next to an unknown man. Unwittingly we were preventing these standing women from sitting by having Dean “exposed” to the vacant seat! He and I switched places, and immediately a woman sat beside me. It was hot being squished together but I was so glad that we finally figured out our error.

The roadway was narrow and sinuous, and wended its way through towns and villages, forests and lush agricultural land. We passed bright green rice paddies studded with egrets, jungle forest with marvelous, thick vines encircling the trunks of many trees, and wonderful banana groves with their huge broad leaves fluttering. As we began to rise into the foothills of the Western Ghats, we began to see rubber tree plantations with small protective plastic frills over the hatched spiral latex-collecting notches, pineapple fields with their blue-green spikey leaves, eucalyptus forests and spice plantations. In the late afternoon sun, the intensity of color of the lush flora was lovely. With increasing elevation, it became

cooler and fresher, and the bus became less crowded until we had the 3-person bus seat to ourselves. Fresh wind coming in the windows, the fading light, and the ever-changing scenery made the trip very enjoyable.

Bus stop at Kothamangalam

Roughly every 30-60 minutes, the bus pulled into a bus depot of a more major town, stopped for 5 minutes to take on new passengers and allow those on board to visit “the loo” or buy snack foods. Light was falling and it became more difficult to see the detail of the countryside. Once it was fully dark, we rounded one corner and from the side of one hillside loomed the full moon, low, bright and large on the undulating horizon. From then on the landscape was illuminated only by moonlight. From the bus we could see the rolling hills, deep valleys below us, and the whole area dotted with individual or collections of lights from peoples’ homes. At one point there was suddenly the strong smell of delicious curry, and I wondered whether we were smelling this from peoples’ homes as they prepared dinner. This didn’t seem very likely, and soon we rounded a corner and saw a big sign saying “Eastern Spice Company”, so we knew it was an ambrosial aroma associated with an important local industry.

Eventually as we neared our destination of Munnar, at an elevation of more than 5000 feet, we began to realize that the agricultural landscape was manicured and orderly and that we were traveling in tea plantation country. It was wonderful that, even by moonlight, we could see the lineations of tea plants that render the hillsides upholstered as though in velour or corduroy, even on quite steep slopes. Suddenly the lights along the road became more dense and we were in Munnar, and quite abruptly we found ourselves standing on yet another busy Indian town road at 8pm with little idea of what would happen next. It had been a long, jolting, but fascinating bus ride, and suddenly we were at our intended destination. Did I mention that our bus fare for this entire journey was 102 rupees each, or about $2.25?

We needn’t have worried, for we were immediately spotted by a rickshaw driver who approached and asked whether we needed him to give us a ride. When we told him the name of our accommodation, the Club Mahindra Lake View Resort, he said rather appologetically that it would be 300 rupees because it was 21 kilometres. We had been told by the resort to expect to pay 500 so were very content with his price. He stopped by a little shop where we bought 2 beers (we felt we deserved this after our long ride) and set off into the dark. Again, in this hilly country, the roads are very winding, and not particluarly smooth, so the ride was bumpy and cool, the temperature having dipped to about 55 degrees. BUT. As we drove mostly uphill along this little road, the country was once again illuminated by the full moon, now higher overhead, and the hillsides and valleys as far as we could see were paved with tea bushes.

Magnificent. After a dazzling half hour we arrived, and what a place it is. Way up on one of the highest local ridges, the buildings of the resort were alight and welcoming. We clambered out of the rickshaw and checked in, and soon were in a small transport van winding even further uphill to our studio suite which overlooks the entire tea-carpeted valley below. Even in the moonlight it was spectacular, and the next morning, as the sun was rising out our windows, the landsape progressed from black silhouettes to bright green. A large lake, created by a power dam, is in the distance below, and all around are the corrugated, manicured expanses of tea, and in the distance, row upon row of ever-distant ridges and hills. It is spectacular.


I guess we’ll just have to stay here for the next two weeks. Oh, well.

[Club Mahindra Lake Resort is accommodation that we arranged through our time share ownership, using the International timeshare “trading” company, RCI]