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Published: February 26th 2013
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Notes from a Dug: Munnar to Kochi to Backwaters We enter Day 2 of the India General Strike still sitting 6500 feet above sea level. Terry and Janice sign up for a mini-trek through parts of the tea plantation into which our hotel has been nestled. Deb is applying more Ayurvedic goop on to the pinched nerve in her foot. It seems to work like a hot damn. Mr. Dug, following the advice of the on-staff Ayurvedic doctor, gives his ankle a break and submits his head for an Ayurvedic massage. For thirty minutes he gets penetrating oil rubbed, poked, slapped and whapped into his skull. He leaves with his head doing a rag-doll flop from side to side and the inner workings of his brain at a full stop.
Terry, in the meantime, is experiencing her own version of a full stop. Helped by her sister and two Sri Lankan ex-pats, she was rescued from a precipitous twenty foot drop into the tea plantation brambles. How does this happen on a hotel sanctioned and supervised "mini-trek?" Two reasons. One, risk is something a person takes each day they take a breath here and, two, liability is
a marginally recognized concept that seems to follow the tenet of "too bad, so sad." In Terry's case, if you're walking left and looking right, well, poop does happen and let's hope the people around can help. Her foot came down on the soft side of the skinny trail and over she went. Able to grab on to some roots or something until Janice reached her and held one wrist, what made the difference were the two Sri-Lankans who got involved and pulled her back to the safe side of the trail. Dusting herself off after but one more adventure, she double-timed it back to the hotel, scuffed but undaunted and needing only quick access to laundry services for the now beaten up elements of her FabIndia wardrobe.
With the two day strike ending at midnight that day, we were able to leave the following morning, go to Munnar, and head to the local tea museum and factory. Our guide was great! All of us had our assumptions about the growing, harvesting and processing of tea challenged and enlightened. We stopped at the tea outlet store where we purchased a boatload of the premium teas at a
fraction of the Canadian market cost. We also bought some essential oils harvested from local plants and premium chocolates from regionally processed coco plants. In the midst of all this we found an Ayurvedic pharmacy and were able to fill our orders for the various potions that three of us require. What we also require but neglected to purchase were extra suitcases and handbags in which to haul all this stuff back to Canada.
Leaving Munnar meant a four hour downhill journey of U-turns and V-turns until we reached the Arabian Sea at Kochi (Cochin). Janice had sea-bands on both wrists, as did Terry. Going the extra precautionary mile meant Terry needed to also dispense the recently uncovered Gravol tablets. She gave one to Janice and took one herself. It was only after they each took one that Terry realized they had just taken her remaining anti-malarial tablets. Hey, what's a girl to do? The pills are sorta the same colour (not really), sorta the same size (not really). Popping another round of meds, the sisters are soon ready for any malarial-burdened, motion-sickness ridden mosquitoes that may come their way.
Along the way to
Cochin we pass a number of substantial homes in areas of relative cleanliness. It appears that many of the local lads head to the Mid-East to work in the oil fields. This gathering of riches has now made the Communist state of Kerala, ironically, amoung the most prosperous in India. We arrive in Cochin and find it to be other-worldly with respect to India and cosmopolitan based on much of what we have experienced. Our hotel is in the historic area of Fort Kochi and situated on reclaimed land of what was once one of the original boatyards in this town of now one million inhabitants. An unimposing structure from the street, the hotel opens up to high ceilings of massive, dark stained beams of Burma teak. It is a boutique hotel of only thirty rooms, each of which is classically restored with tasteful period pieces and updated current elements. As we are right on the water, each room has a terrace that abuts the working seaport that reminds both Terry and me of the magic of Istanbul. Everything about the location and the hotel works and is one of the accommodation highlights of our trip.
We
hop on board the sunset cruise the hotel offers its guests and capture pictures of the Chinese fishing nets in operation. No one panhandles or begs and we get to be just visitors in a land of unbelievably rich layers. Doug strikes up a conversation with one of the young hotel staff who looks Mongolian but is from the northern-most region of India that borders Bhutan, Myanmar and China. It seems almost inconceivable the diversity that exists here and how it all swims together in a sticky molasses soup.
The next day, we visit a rather pooped-out palace that has, on its walls, a series of 300 year old, floor to ceiling, captivating and stunningly detailed paintings of the story of Shiva and his pursuit of a local young woman. We drive by the closed local Jewish Synagogue that is the oldest (1500's) in what used to be the British Commonwealth. It still functions even though there are only seven Jewish people left in this city of one million. To conduct services they must have at least ten Jewish people (men, I believe) and so rely on the presence of tourists or Jews from neighbouring areas to
form that complement. We pass by a communal laundry area where women (and men!) can wash and hang their clothes to dry on modified high sawhorses on about two acres of land. At night we watch a traditional Kathakali dance performance that is half history/demonstration and half performance. The old guy doing the demonstration (my age plus) rolled, flipped and projected his eyeballs such that all of us were getting seasick ..... "Hey, Terry, where are those Malaron/Gravol pills you were flipping out?"
We leave the following morning for Alleppey and the backwaters cruise of south Kerala. For us, this will be a twenty hour journey through the diked fields and islands that are home to huge tracts of below sea level fields of rice farms. Thirty-four degrees and high humidity make all of us one lump of muggy, sticky, waxy tar-babies. Doing our best to adapt, we plop our over-worked touristo bodies on the front deck lounge cushions and watch the languid pace of life flow by us as if there are no cares in the world. Clothes are being washed and whacked on the stones of the shoreline. Kids are jumping in like Tom &
Huck on the bayou. Young girls with hair half way down their backs are leaning back and tossing their heads forward such that their shimmering load of midnight black tresses are smacked on the stones, beaten clean and then piled in rolls on top of their heads, ready for another day in the molten sun of their lives. With eternity for a timeline, it's a great way for us to ease into our last leg of the trip, the beaches of Kovalam.
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