Blogs from Wayanad, Kerala, India, Asia - page 3

Driving to Wayanad was an experience. The road till Calicut was pretty much the irritating NH 17 - with hardly space to overtake - sometimes you can't even overtake a bicycle! Also, Kerala towns, villages never end... they just merge one into the other. The down side is that you never get a moment to park the car on the side of the road and stretch your legs without the fear of being run down by a 'town bus'. After we hit the ghats (NH 212) and entered the fringes of the ‘12,000 Acre forest’ we were pretty safe from the traffic - and the weather became cooler. The Xylo took to the hills like a charm... prancing away with ease. Because we were driving one day ahead of the monsoon... we just had to look ... read more

Varghese and his wife Bhima were an absolute delight. As well as running the farm (coffee, bananas, rice, and every spice imaginable), Varghese is a policeman. There farmhouse is beautiful, on three sides of a courtyard, with rooms off all three sides, and a big communal eating area at the end of one of the sides. We were shown our room, which was so wonderfully cool after the ever rising temperatures at the coast. The we were told coffee was waiting for us. And what coffee; made from their own beans, mixed with cardomum and clove (both also from the farm), and with milk taken fresh from the cow. Just magic. There was no sign of the Irish couple who we were supposed to have hooked up with at Callicut (if we had caught the right ... read more

Hello. I am currently staying in a bamboo hut without electricity near Gokarna. It is a three mile hike to the nearest place with electricity and a six mile hike into town over some steep terrain. There are several other long term travelers staying here too. I've been traveling at a very fast pace the last couple weeks and will stay here for a week or so to relax, hike, and take some yoga classes. Unfortunately, my camera needs new batteries and none are available here, so it will be a few days before I can post pictures. I've had a lot of interesting adventures this past week, so I'll post a few short entries this next week re-capping and describing Gokarna. Run through the Jungle: The moment the bus crossed from Karnataka back into Kerala, ... read more

We got up at around 5:30am and headed downstairs to checkout. We were told that this would be no problem but as we wandered down the stairs, there were no lights on in the reception and no signs of life, with the front door locked. As our seats on the train were booked, I was annoyed and shouted out something unprintable when suddenly some poor little Indian lad who was asleep on the floor behind the counter woke up startled and quickly put his shirt on. We were then able to check out and set off for the station before the sun came up. The train journey was smooth, we found our seats easily and even treated ourselves to a cup of Indian coffee during the journey. We arrived five or so hours later in Calicut. ... read more

Unsurprisingly enough, confusion reigned supreme as our traveling triad attempted to suss out the best way to get into the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, in Kerel,a by way of bus originating from Mysore. On the map, it was a short distance by road, in the bus station, however, it took a number of conversations, fact-checking, board reading, and head scratching before we were relatively comfortable that the bus we selected would actually arrive somewhere close to our destination. To further complicate matters, I’m pretty sure it was “free-ride-on-the-bus” day because the public bus we chose to make the four hour journey was completely full 25 minutes before it was scheduled to depart. The next bus to Wayanad wasn’t scheduled to leave for several more hours (at least that is what MOST folks at the bus station were ... read more