Jan 19 to 26: First Week at Club Mahindra, Kerala State

All is well with Alison and me. The only little thing that could be improved is internet access. We have to go to the main lobby for WiFi and there are no electrical plugs available so we don’t have much chance (before the battery runs out) for posting to the blog if pictures are involved. I have learned how to reduce the size of the posted pictures to shorten the uploading time during posting. So there is a silver lining…..


But, back to the hill country of Kerala State. It is BEAUTIFUL!!! The heat, humidity, dust and noise of the coast was left behind on our bus trip here. Being in the tea plantation zone, from 1500 to 2500 meters above sealevel, really has its advantages. The local population center, Munnar, is described as ‘scruffy’ with not much to look at , which is true, but the region where it is located is ‘engulfed in a sea of stunning green’, which also is true (per Lonely Planet).

Munnar is large enough to have its own city phone code, but to small to have it’s population listed in our guide book. The resort where we are staying is

about 20 km SE of town located on the side of a mountain looking down at the local dam and reservoir and a valley full of vividly green tea fields. The tea field patterns shift with the sun and clouds and their color changes from a light green to dark green as the tea pickers work across the fields. From our studio apartment’s balcony we look over these changing patterns.

Tea Plantation hill

Above the resort is a picturesque, mostly bald rock mountain with a small natural lake in a saddle that feeds a water falls about 3 km from the resort. Some of the water that comes over the falls is syphoned into water trucks and driven to the resort water tank above the resident buildings where it is purified and becomes our local water supply. The trucks are going from morning to evening to keep the resort from running out of water. What becomes of this as the rivulet dries up in about March, we don’t know. Anyway, at present there is ample water for lovely showers in our snazzy bathroom, with two shower heads!

Tree ant colony!

Our days here have been spent taking a local area bus tour set up by the resort; taking trips using a locally hired taxi and driver-guide; exploring the lake above the resort with a resort guide; walking down to the reservoir through the tea fields and taking a rickshaw back uphill to the resort; or relaxing and watching Bolliwood movies.


Our excursions with the local driver and walking about by ourselves have been good because they are at a more ‘smell the roses’ pace. The resort outings are good to cover longer distances and more stops but, are generally more rushed than we would do by ourselves. (Our own planned trips are also about half the resort price!)

ALL roads in the hill country are twisty, bumpy, and narrow. ALL roads in the hill country have SPECTACULAR views weather it be of tea fields, forests or jungle, small villages, water falls, local people doing daily chores, coriander plots, or of the oncoming bus that only leaves the road shoulder for you to pass.




Flower Garden

 Besides the tea plantations, this area is also known for spices.

We had a private tour of a spice garden, really a coriander plantation in the forest, and saw and learned about all the local spices grown for local consumption and export. Interspersed throughout the coriander plantings were black pepper, cloves, hot peppers, coffee, nutmeg, vanilla, and cinnamon. We were told how each were grown,harvested and used.

Eating Tali Indian style on a banana leaf.

The security treehouse gave us a good overview of the forest. This is manned at night to keep any maurauding animals (elephants, pigs, deer) out of the plantings and provide safety for the guard against predators (tigers, leopards). Sometimes when an errascible elephant roams into the spice plantation, a firecracker is set off to shoo it away. We sometimes hears these random explosions in the evening from our balcony.


The tea plantation and associated villages, schools, and society will be described in more detail in another blog posting. Tea production has affected this area since it was introduced in the 1850s.

Another interesting part of Kerala State life is it’s politics. It is the only state in India ruled by the Communist Party and has been since 1954. Kerala is the only state with virtually 100% literacy. It has a basic but universal health care system. We started learning about this while in Alleppey from Joseph and Sona, and are learning more bits and pieces about Kerala politics as we stay in the state.

On our outings we have seen several wild elephant groups, peacocks, wild pigs, a mongoose, tamed water buffalo, many types of birds, colorful and large insects, a snake, and caged crocodiles. We still are hopeful to see a tiger and a leopard (from a safe distance) during our next week here in the hill country, but have been told that these are very rare sightings indeed.
 



Village shrine below our resort



Tea plantation worker's housing



The boys were our guides, the girls and man were family members who also joined us.



An unexpected pleasure on one of our first days here in the hill country was meeting an Indian family who also were taking the general bus tour. Ruma, Nitin and their 5-year-old daughter Sana immediately started chatting with us, and by the end of the tour we were fast friends. What a delightful family. They live in Mumbai and were vacationing here at Club Mahindra. We arranged to do a walk with them the next day up to the lake above the resort, with a guide, and then to go to Chinnar Wildlife Refuge with them the following day in a hired car. What fun we had. They were very forthright and answered all our questions about

“how things work, and why”, and we had some good laughs exchanging habits and traditions. Sana was such a good sport (imagine spending most of each day with four adults, laughing and chatting about what seemed to her to be nonsensical things). On our final evening we snuck up to the magnificent treehouse at the resort, all set up for a special dinner for two, and sat on the floor having a drink and snacks without disturbing the setting for the later special event. Then we came to our rom and pushed the furniture around and had a good dinner of leftovers and some dishes from room service. We had great fun with them and hope to re-unite with them in Mumbai when we return there in late February.

We are just over halfway through our time here in Munnar, and enjoying it very much. The weather remains cool enough that, in the evening, we are scrambling to put on socks to stay warm, but in the meantime we see in the newspaper that the temperature at the coast is getting up to 32 degrees C (or around 90 F) and it is muggy. We can expect that in Fort Cochi, our next destination. I am trying to memorize how it feels to be cool and dry and trying to finish knitting my pair of socks while the wool still slides through my fingers instead of sticking.