Sunday, January 21:
In Cochin, we stayed with Jenny and her husband, Jose, at their home, Le Royale. We learned about Jenny through India Mike, and the rave reviews that she received on his website did not even come close to preparing us for the grandeur of her home or the hospitality that we received.
On our last night at Jenny’s before heading out for our tour of Kerala, Jenny treated us to a lesson in Keralan cooking and helped us dress up in saris. While Indian women put their saris on in a matter of minutes, had we been left to our own devices, it would have taken hours get the six meters of silk tucked and draped in all the right places. We then had a modeling session on the central stairway and on the chaise lounge in the living room.
Monday, January 22 and Tuesday, January 23:
On Monday morning we left Cochin and headed to Munnar with our driver, Sulfi, at the wheel. Munnar is at about 6,000 feet, and the road winds its way through the mountains with very little shoulder and nothing resembling a guardrail. The road, although open to two-way traffic, is often only wide enough for one car. Sulfi is, however, a skilled driver, and we managed to make the four-hour trip with only a few close calls.
The area around Munnar could not have been more beautiful: steep hills carpeted with a mosaic of verdant tea fields. On the way to our hotel, we stopped at a tea field, and a few of the women working in the fields let us pretend to pluck tea. Although the view was great, the work was quite a bit more taxing than grading papers. In the afternoon, we climbed from our cottage into the valley and tea fields below. The climb back up was a bit of a challenge for Laurel, but she made it, causing the staff only a bit of concern.
We were very happy with the hotel in Munnar, with one relatively minor exception. When we booked the tour, we asked for one room, but we specifically requested two beds. When we arrived, we were shown to a room with one king bed, but told that it would be removed and two twins would be brought. We were a bit skeptical, given that our cottage was at the bottom of a very steep hill, but we didn’t argue. By the time the sun went down, we got a bit nervous, so we called reception and were reassured that beds would be brought. Within a few minutes, the desk manager arrived at our room to announce that “we had a small problem.” Long story short, Mimi slept in the king bed in the lovely teak frame and Laurel slept in the small prison cot in the corner.
We spent Tuesday seeing the sights, the highlight of which was a visit to a tea museum, where we learned about tea harvesting and processing, about the difference grades of tea, and about the development of the tea industry in India under British rule.
During our stay at Blackberry Hills, Laurel managed to achieve one of her two goals for our trip: liking beer. She’s still working on the other one: getting in shape. Unfortunately, achieving goal number one is likely to hinder achieving goal number two.
Wednesday, January 24:
On Wednesday, we left early for Madurai in the state of Tamil Nadu; we later learned that Madurai means “drop of honey.” According to Hindu tradition, Lord Vishnu dropped four drops of honey from heaven to earth, one of which became Madurai. In the afternoon, we, along with hundreds, if not thousands of pilgrims, visited the Sri Meenashi temple complex, accurately described as a “riotously baroque example of Dravidian architecture with gopurams covered from top to bottom in a breathtaking profusion of multi-colored images of gods and goddesses, animals, and mythical creatures.”
The difference between Kerala and Tamil Nadu was striking. We had read that Keralans have the highest literacy rate and highest income in India, but we did not expect the differences to be so visible. In Tamil Nadu, we saw much more subsistence farming and fewer motorized vehicles. We even noticed that many more people were going barefoot and their clothing was not as elaborate as the outfits that we saw in Kerala.
That evening, we ate at the rooftop restaurant of the Hotel Supreme, which has a stunning view of the temple. For dinner, we had a dosa (like a crepe) filled with shredded coconut, Kashmiri pulau (a sweet rice dish with nuts, raisins, and other dried fruit), and paneer masala (cubes of cottage cheese with a curry sauce). We thought it was a great combination, but the waiter looked at us as if we had ordered a dinner of lettuce, a waffle, and a hot dog and then poured hot fudge sauce and beef gravy all over it.
Thursday, January 25 and Friday, January 26:
Elephants, elephants, elephants.
From Madurai, we traveled back to Kerala, to Thekkady outside the Periyar National Park. We stayed with Dolly and Cyriac at Pepper County Villa, a private home just outside of town.
On Thursday afternoon, we toured a spice farm, where we learned about growing and harvesting cardamom (the King of Spices), black pepper, cinnamon (the Queen), cloves, vanilla (the Princess), nutmeg, mace, sandalwood, ginger, turmeric, and allspice. We asked about the Prince and the Jack of Spices, but apparently they don’t exist. At the end of our tour, we declined the offer to ride the trained elephants, but we couldn’t resist buying a few baskets of fruit and feeding them to the baby and mama elephants.
Early (really early) the next morning, we trekked through the hills (many of them) of Periyar. Although our guide did not speak much English, he excelled at spotting birds and animals, and when he could not recall the English word “parakeet,” he used his cell phone to call back to the office from the middle of the park.
After a few hours of trekking, as we reached the top of yet another hill, the guide turned around, grabbed Mimi’s hand, and told us to run back down the hill. It turns out he had just come face-to-face with two elephants. We scrambled back down the hill, across a small ravine, and up the other side, where we crouched in the underbrush watching the elephants, while the guide made what we interpreted to be elephant “shooing” noises. (Earlier in the trek, Laurel had been a bit hesitant on the downhills, but now had no problems. I’m convinced her earlier nervousness was just a ploy to the get guide to hold her hand.) We were surprised that the guide, who was quite experienced, seemed fairly flustered; his heart was beating palpably and he took off his red shirt to avoid attracting elephant attention. He later told us that we were very lucky because this was the first time that he had seen elephants in this part of the park.
Later that day, we had our third elephant encounter. Along with several hundred tourists, we took a cruise on a lake in the park, the highlight of which was seeing a herd of seven elephants at the lake’s edge. When cruising back to shore, there was quite a bit of commotion, with shouts of “dolphin” and “porpoise”; we saw nothing in the water and then heard others shouting “otter.” No otter in sight, we heard the final shout of “sea mouse,” and looked to see two mongooses (mongeese?) running along the shore.
Saturday, January 27:
Next stop on the tourist trail: a houseboat through the backwaters of Kerala. We set sail out of Alleppey, with approximately 500 similar boats carrying tourists. The backwaters are a network of 900 kilometers of canals and lakes providing access to rice paddies. With a crew of four (the captain, the engineer, the cook, and the trainee – training for what, we’re still not sure), we spent the afternoon and evening alternating among enjoying the view, waving to children on the shore, and arguing over who was Ginger and who was Mary Anne.
Sunday, January 28 and Monday, January 29:
Our last days on tour were spent in Samudra. We did very little other than lounge by beach, watch the sun set, and get bit by mosquitoes. We did, however, venture out a few times, once to buy Julia a hot pink salwar kameez and for her husband, Michael, a pale orange dhoti. We look forward to seeing photos!
Having been on the tourist trail for a week or so now, we’re starting to see many of the same faces. While in Samudra, we ran into Percy, a corporate lawyer from Mumbai, and Cashmera, who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. While chatting about family, Percy told us that he lost both his parents, one brother, his sister-in-law, and one nephew in the tsunami. His 10-year-old nephew was found alive, in the top of a tree. Percy and Cashmera were able to fly to Sri Lanka to bring him home, and he now lives with them in Mumbai.
Tuesday, January 30:
After a long drive, we’re back at Jenny’s, saying our good-byes, and getting ready for our 4:30 a.m. (ugh!) flight to Entebbe. If all goes according to plan, tomorrow we’ll be in Kampala, preparing for the first of three training sessions for magistrates in Uganda.
