Spices, Enfields and a Cracking View...

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Good Afternoon People,

Where you last left us the intrepid explorer was deep in the hills of the Western Ghats trying to hunt down the elusive... 'cold beer in a bar in India'

Ha you thought I was going to say something hopelessly romantic and escapist didn't you?

Well no, as it turns out I am partial to the odd beer so when I met a fellow countryman by the name of Richie over noodles on the main bazzar in Munnar (a rhyme!) we decided to head to the only bar in the local area. What he didn't tell me is he was traveling around India on a Royal Enfield Bullet. For those of you in the dark the bullet is an icon of Indian transportation; the bike was originally a British design that that was brought by an Indain company for the Indian army some 50 years ago. Since then it has become the greatest way to travel India and if you have one in India you are the traveling version of an A list celebrity.

Following my initial 20 questions about the Enfield and once I had got over my awe struckness (did I just create a new word there?) we went for a beer. As it turned out my new pal was heading to Periyar the following day as well so we agreed the meet the next day after his glorious bike ride and my horrible bus ride...

And the bus ride really was horrible. Four hours spent on the bus two of which I had to spend standing because my polite Englishness meant I couldn't let a lady stand on the bus. The road from Munnar to Periyar however is fantastic which was highlighted to me by Richie's beaming face and the proclamation of "probably the best days riding of my life"... Bastard.

The next day we decided to hit a tea plantation and a spice plantation and much to my delight we were to be traveling to these destinations on the bike.

The tea plantations was very similar to the tea museum I went around in Munnar so I wont bore you with that again. The spice plantation on the other hand was fantastic. The two of us were given a very personal tour around the plantation by what we assumed to bet he daughter of the plantation owner. We were told about all of the varying different spices in the garden and a lot of the time given tastes of the raw spices. I know what you're thinking... bloody hell Jack's gone all weird on us and now likes gardening and airy fairy spices; I must admit I did enjoy myself.

Richie's guidebook suggested a viewpoint around 16km from Periyar that promised fantastic views over the Western Ghat mountains. We set off that evening on the bike to find the place and what greeted us was not what we were expecting. Perched on top of a hill was a large out of place boulder (for which my geographical brain was questioning how it came to be); sitting underneath the boulder was a temple carved out which was lazily called 'rock temple'. This however wasn't the amazing part... the view from the top was one of the best my young eyes had ever rested upon. On one side were the large mountains of the Western Ghats, on the other the wildlife sanctuary and in between a plethora of varying woodland and plantations. But it was not what was on the ground that was the best the best part was the skyline but I will come to describe is later.

As we were staying next to one of the most popular national parks in India it would be rude not to pay a visit and spend some time there. This would have been great if it wasn't for the fortune they were charging foreigners to enter the park. After purchasing tickets of the ranger that had the look of Fagan from Oliver Twsit in his eye we entered the park (on the Enfield of course) and headed to the endge of teh lake. We had decided before hand to do the cheapest guided walk which was poorly named the 'nature walk'; the information promised the nature walk was "the right programme to feel nature, hear here whispers and smell her flowers... we were wrongly misinformed.

Our particular walk was shared with four Italians who were pleasant enough; we set off with our guide who was fully dressed in typical international wildlife guide gear (see Ray Mears for a visual). All was going well you might think... well no, you see our guide had the personal skills of a fish. It wasn't the fact that his English was bad he was just bad at communicating with other human beings... maybe he could communicate with the animals?. Unfortunately for us (and him) this wasn't the case because we saw bugger all other than a few mangy monkeys in the entirety of a three hour walk.

Feeling a little dejected then we decided to head to the one place we knew wouldn't disappoint, our view point. If we thought the view was good the day before the view that afternoon was just awe inspiring. In four different directions we had four different types of weather and cloud; and we were sat in the sunshine bang in the middle watching the show. We sat there for around two hours listening to music and taking photos. Honestly the photos don't do the view justice it really was immense.

I'm afraid it's come to that time again for me to sign off.

I am heading back down to the coast tomorrow to do some boat trips on the backwaters; so I will write about that in few days time.

Take care on those icy roads!

Jack x

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Photos

In the Spice Garden
A tree with my name on it... literally

Admiring the View
On of the views from the top of the secret viewpoint

One Incredible Sky
The incredible sunset cloud formations from the viewpoint.

Enfield Dreams
Sitting on the bike whilst mulling over the idea of a future India trip on an Enfield (providing I learn how to ride one!)

Comments

[helen]

Good Sky
Hi Jack Our snow has now gone (even down here we had a couple of inches) and we have had a few really dull and dampy days - but today has been gorgeous. We went down to bournemouth for coffee and watched the 'brave' people in the sea with their surfboards. I know what you mean about skies - there is nothing better than going down to our cliffs and watching the sun going down into the sea with great colours. You are obviously having a great time - bye, Helen and Chris xx