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Published: November 13th 2009
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Friday, Nov 13th - Munnar
Today was my second day in Munnar, well, sort of. I arrived yesterday night at 6 pm after a beautiful, but tiring 5 hour bus ride. As I mentioned before, I like the buses, but especially the first two hours where pretty awful. Getting on the bus I thought ‘wow, such a nice and spacious bus, with comfy, cushioned seats’ got in a row, sat my backpack next to me and started to read. But India wouldn’t have been India, if that would’ve been it. The bus got more and more crowded. When I saw, that my row was supposed top seat three people I thought, I’d never fit, especially with my two backpacks - well, it did fit. I don’t think I ever sat to crammed up in a bus ever before, but it did fit. The most amazing thing was the ticket seller, keeping count of all the people and making his way through the jammed bus. I sat in my row with two other ladies, one of them practically on my lap. I don’t think I mentioned, yet, that the bus seats are pretty narrow, while most Indian Mamas are definitely on
the heavier side. Indians have a different need for personal space. Here it’s totally normal, to rest your elbow on the leg of a perfect stranger, if the situation requires it. And even when seats get free around, no one changes the seat to have more space. It was very weird to me at first, but I got used to it. This, of course only applies for the same sex, but men and women always sit separate in buses anyways (women in the front, men in the back).
So the drive up to Munnnar, was breathtaking. The town’s located 1500m high, so it’s quite a hike. The landscape reminded me of a mixture of Lord of the Rings and rainforest. It was love at first sight I took so many pictures, but as always, they don’t really do the beauty justice. I got this cute place to stay here and it’s by far the nicest, quietest and cleanest room, I’ve had so far. I even have hot water!!! YAY! So today I started off with a typical southern Indian breakfast - Dosa. Pretty much deep fried pancake with hot chutneys. I originally wasn’t gonna have this for brekkie
anymore, but this morning, I didn’t find anything else. So far, my stomach’s been awesome and I didn’t get sick once. I pretty much followed the rule of my dad. He always says, If you eat spicy enough, you kill everything that can harm you. It worked for me so far. But this morning I felt really sick after this fat-soaked Dosa. So I decided, to dive my body a little break from the hard-to-digest Indian food and got some fruits, veggies, Cornflakes and Curd (commonly known as yoghurt) for breakfast tomorrow. Nevertheless, this is the first place in India (except for Bangalore) selling awesome homemade chocolate. So yummy!!! I’ll definitely not pass on that one :-)
Afterwards I took a bus to Top Station, a super small village on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It was cute, but very foggy, so the view wasn’t as good. But again, the drive up there was totally worth it. Tomorrow, I’m going on a guided tour, looking at tea plantation, sandalwood forests and wildlife.
As you might have guessed, I decided not to do the Vipassana meditation in India. I only have three weeks left, and I really don’t
feel like spending time for a thing, that I can as well do in Australia. The thought of leaving in three weeks kills me. As you might have noticed, I totally fell in love with this country and it’s people. Everyone is so friendly and talking to you and even if you don’t understand a word, they’ll keep on talking, being excited to talk to a European. In this case: smile and waggle your head a little. I don’t think I’ve wrote about this before, but the head - waggle is one of the most peculiar things here in India. It can pretty much mean anything, from ‘yes, I understand’ to ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about’ to ‘get lost’. It always depends on the situation. Plus it’s a way of greeting each other. It’s funny, I love it and I’ll miss it, when I’m gone.
One thing I’ll most definitely not miss is getting stared at by Indian men. I mean, I’m totally used to being stared at by now, out of interest or fascination, but some Indian men stare differently. It doesn’t matter how much you cover up, they’ll still stare, most likely at your
boobs. I really don’t wanna overgeneralize here, cause I also met some awesome, cool Indian guys (especially in Bangalore ;-)) and I totally enjoyed hanging out with them. But after a few weird encounters, I really got to the point, where I’m regarding niceness of single Indian men (age doesn’t matter here) with suspicion. Ok, just one example. The other day I was walking along the coast of Ford Cochin looking at the fishermen. One older guy (50 or so) came up to me asking me, whether I wanted to take a closer look. He seemed ok (I mean, he could’ve easily been my dad) so I went a couple of steps with him, onto some kinda bridge. There we sat down, a chatted for a little bit. Then, the usual question came up ‘Are you married?’. Indians ask that all the time, cause for most of them, there must be something wrong with you, if you’re my age and NOT married. Prepared as I am, I said yes and showed him my fake wedding ring. I’ve used that trick a couple of times before, but it generally doesn’t work, since the Indian men figures I’m here by myself, so my ‘husband’ can’t be a good husband, letting me travel on my own. I even tried the ‘my husband’s Indian’- story, but even that hasn’t been too successful. Well, anyways, back to the bridge in Ford Cochin. So after a couple minutes, this guy went like ‘so, are you gonna come here tonight at seven?’. I wondered what for. Then he conveniently lost all his English and only repeated ‘you come here tonight at seven’. I simply got up and left the scene. I mean EXCUSE ME???!!! Do I look like a hooker??? Maybe to hin I did, cause I’m blonde and green eyed. Travel tip for India: If you’re a girl, die your hair black and wear fake brown contacts and go tanning before you go.
No, it’s actually not that bad and I’m a little exaggerating, but it can get annoying, cause usually I’m a very friendly person, and I hate to be suspicious and always thinking ‘is he only nice to me, cause I’m a blonde, European woman’. Well, but I guess India is one of the places, where you learn to say f*** off in a very polite way (Rickshaw, madam??? Come, look my shop, madam!!! Oh, and my personal favorite: Drums, madam??? :-))
Wow, I’ve written half a book today… Gonna go and see now, if there is power, so the Internet is working, so I can post this.
More later!!!!
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Suragh
non-member comment
Indian Men
Well, we Indian Men are Tactless and sex starved. All of us. And we see your movies and get a feeling that u guys are easy. So we just try our luck. Who knows when Luck will come knocking on our doors. No Offense. But I am not kidding either. P.S : 'We' doesn't include me... most of the time.