Road Trip

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Beth's Article. Well, I am writing my first article (on a computer where half the letters are faded off the keys, so it is really hunt and peck) while Azim is away at an English school observing a class in session. We have taken over the internet cafe and out of the four of us, I am the least able to help anybody-we'll see if we can get this published! This first picture is of the kids in our Ambassador "Classic" that we rented for four days. We were supposed to get a brand new Indica car for six days and that turned into a different car for five days and more money. Then, this being India, Azim finally arrived at our hotel with "Junkie"-which we grew quite fond of - I think it was a 1960 something model. Lots of rust, but the air conditioning worked, except it was really loud and the oil/diesel smell was so bad we all felt car sick. We left from Alleppey to Thekkady (on our way to Periyar Tiger Reserve) and after about an hour of windy roads and rough traffic, we had to pull over for fresh air. We stopped outside a house and when we got out of the car, the dogs started barking, which brought the owner outside to see what was up. So we explained we were just feeling a bit car sick and he invited us all in for drinks and the use of his bathroom. We sat in his very nice, cool house far half an hour and chatted with his wife and son-hard to imagine that happening in Canada! So we left and decided to forget about air conditioning and rode the rest of the days with the windows down and somewhat fresher air 😊 After a day, one window stayed down permanently, the horn stopped working ( a must have here) and it took us six hours to go 120 kilometers so we figured we would never make it all the way to Kodaicanal or Kannur, so we changed our plans once again and went to Munar. This next picture is in Munar and we are surrounded by tea plantations. It was very beautiful-green and cool! And the drive up to Munar was great. Just for the record, Azim did a great job driving us all around and avoiding rickshaws, buses, cars, people, cows and motorcycles (and the occassional monkey 😊 He likes the no rule way of driving and I trust him far more here than back home so everybody is happy because he doesn't have to listen to any advice from the backseat-except an occassional reminder to drive on the left side of the road. Anyway, we did not get to stay long enough in Munar so we might try to get to another hill station later on in the trip. We did go for a walk through the tea plantations before we headed back to Kochin. We took the train out of Kochin on Feb. 8th for Kannur where we are now-at a beautiful place on the beach. We are practically the only ones on the beach and we're getting all our meals cooked for us at the hotel. We have a beautiful room that fits all of us and all our luggage and best of all, it has three ceiling fans! But we have no pictures of Kannur, so we'll write more about this spot later. Bye for now, Beth

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Photos

"Junkie"
Well that is what we nicknamed her if that gives you any idea of the quality of the ride. Literally the oldest car we could spot on the road (we had a contest to pass the time)and we got many pitiful headshakes when people realized we had rented her-I'm sure they wondered how much we had got taken for. The kids liked her after a while because there were no seatbelts and they got to ride in the front!

Munar Tea Plantations
On a walk through the tea plantations-one of my favourite spots so far because it was cool, green and clean! Our guide is Azim, but his face is covered.

Periyar Tiger Reserve
I didn't write much about this spot and I'm hoping I got the name right because Azim isn't here to help us with names-his forte besides driving in crazy places! But we took a three hour trek through the jungle and actually saw quite a bit-monkeys, giant squirrels, a mongoose and three elephants in the wild-no chains around their ankles! We had to take this raft across the river, which was full of dead tadpoles because the water was too warm.