Days 10 through 20. Tigers, tea and tour guides.

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After lounging in Pondicherry for a week or so, it was time to get on the road to explore what South India had to offer. We had planned ten day’s travel with the first five to focus on historical places of interest, with the next five being focused more on scenery and relaxation.



We fit a lot into a relatively short period of time but are happy to be settled back into some home life at my Dad and Step Mother’s house in Gujarat for a bit of normality (and clean clothes) after a couple of weeks on the road.



Here’s what we’ve learned.



Booking through a good tour company is a great way to explore unknown areas of the world.

We had previously booked most of our trips through online resources like Trip Advisor and the like. For this trip, we wanted to make sure we had someone who understand what we like (a mixture of good food, a bit of history, and a lot of peace and quiet) so met with a friend of the family (Suresh at Sovereign Travel in Pondy) who did a great job understanding what we were after and then booked a ten day tour where we didn’t have to worry about anything.



Loose fitting local wear is the way to go.

Rachel has always tried to avoid the appearance of ‘going native’ after seeing folks come back from Mexico for the weekend dressed in full sombrero and poncho gear. However, in the case of traveling around India, local wear has many benefits; Firstly, it is cool (if you go for natural cotton) and keeps the wearer cool (or at least cooler than close fitting man made fiber. Secondly, you get a lot less unwanted attention and the locals tend to assume you are to be respected. Thirdly, they cost very little - per the last blog, very good quality clothes can be found for under $10. Fourthly, Rachel looks ace in a punjabi top - you will see photographic evidence of this throughout.



Lots about tea.

There is a life lesson here. While in the mountains, we had a tour of a tea museum scheduled and we weren’t excited about it and were going to skip. How much do you want to know about tea? However, we took a life lesson from my mother and step-dad (the awesomely named Barry Barry Holgate after a moment of confusion at the birth registry). They tend to agree to go see anything that’s suggested. That leads to us making fun of their trips to salt museums and such, however they lead more active, educated and fun filled life than most folks we know. It was with that spirit we agreed and had one of the more interesting times on our tour. Did you know, for example that ALL tea (white, black, green, oolong etc.) comes from the same tea plant. It is just processed differently. This begs the question why Teavana charges so much for various teas (also, the best green tea at the plantation costs under $2 - a far cry from $80+ at stores in the US.).



All ‘Toddy’ is not created equal.

To lean heavily on the gonzo journalist; it was in the backwaters of Kerela when the toddy started to take hold. Rather than the nicely flavored whisky, hot water, lemon and honey drink I’d been used to drinking for colds since childhood (thanks Mum) - toddy here is a moonshine concoction made from a coconut, left to ferment for a day in the sun. We were called by our driver one night to be told he had ‘a guy’ who made toddy and do we want some. Per the above, we said yes and were given two Aquafina bottles of a cloudy grey mixture. We then had a ‘toddy’ night on a house boat. What did we learn? You’re only ever 24 hours and a coconut away from getting tipsy.



Rachel gets celebrity treatment occasionally.

The first time it happened was in the Gangaikondacholapurum (good luck with that one) temple - there were some kids who were sheepishly throwing glances at Rachel before their teacher came over and asked whether she minded if the kids got their photo taken with her. Then they all ran over and we super happy about it. This happened twice again when random folks asked Rachel to have their photo taken. She always said yes and we got some fun friends out of it.



Christianity hit India before it arrived in Western Europe.

This may be obvious to some readers, but we found a church where the sign said it was built in 407AD. We figured it was a misleading misprint because Europeans didn’t arrive until roughly a thousand years later. However, the first church in India actually dates back to 57AD (we didn’t see it) and Jews, Muslims, Hindus & Christians have been living peacefully (with some exceptional years) in places like Kerela for over a thousand years.



October is a great time to visit India.

The high season runs from November through April here, so in October the places we visited were very quiet and we didn’t feel hassled or rushed while we toured around. The weather has started to get more manageable (cooler) and it rained most nights meaning the days were a little less muggy. Due to the out-of-season aspect of the timing, along with Suresh booking us into mainly boutique style hotels, in four of the seven hotels we stayed at we were the only guests. We both could get used to the ratio of 15 staff to take care of us.





What have we been up to?

(A lot)



We got picked up from Pondicherry by our awesome driver for the next ten days, Jeevan. We then took a couple of hour’s drive towards the center of Southern India stopping at various temples along the way, many of which dated back a thousand years. The history of most of them is fascinating but their real draw is their ornate carvings of gods, deities and stories from folk law. Some of them stand 260 feet tall and must have been something to see if you came across them out of what was essentially jungle a thousand years ago. We had some excellent guides, Rachel’s favorite being Paneer, due to his cheesy name. Although a Brahmin, we were told by our next guide that Paneer was something of a local celebrity on the late night bar scene.



Chettinad (where we stayed the second night) was one of the highlights due to it being a small town that trains many of the best chefs in India. Their cuisine is unique to the region and some of the spices can only be found locally. I took the opportunity to do a cooking class, and we both took the opportunity to stuff our faces.



After a (missable) trip to Madurai we headed to the Western Ghat mountains for a stop on an island in the middle of a lake in Thekkady. This was probably the most peaceful part of the trip. We had the place to ourselves and did nothing except eat, read and sit on our porch watching the wildlife. We saw various types of deer, warthogs, monkeys, peacocks and wild elephants. One night we were drinking our new ‘empty the pantry’ cocktail - a mix of vodka, fresh pineapple juice and a neon colored orange soda drink over ice - while sat listening to music on our porch when we looked up and saw a grizzly bear listening to the music on the other side of our wooden lattice balcony about ten feet away. We were told we were very fortunate to see a bear. We didn’t feel overly fortunate at the time and it signaled the evening was going to head indoors.

Driving to the tea plantations of Munnar was an experience in itself. You travel on a road that is only wide enough to fit a bus and it winds up 5000 ft mountains with sheer drops on one side and tea plants on the other. That on it’s own would be fine, but when you’re overtaking one of those busses and another bus comes the other way you discover that the road will actually fit three vehicles, going different directions, at speed. At times like this it is wise to focus on the tea plants.



We did a tour of Munnar with a trek to the second highest peak in South India along with the aforementioned tea museum. We were shown around by a wonderful guide called SriRaj. He knew so much about the wildlife of the area and more than any man we’ve ever met about tea. He was one of the main reasons we had such an interesting trip to Munnar. A good guide makes for a good visit. He left us with a list of Bollywood movies to watch as he was well versed in those as well.





Our trip ended with some days in the scenic backwaters of Kerela. One night was spent on a house boat which gives you a relaxing meander around the rivers and lakes. We had a great chef again so ate well while laying on cushions at the front of the boat under a traditional thatched ceiling watching river life go on around us. It made us feel a bit like Egyptian royalty headed up the Nile. After spending 24 hours on the boat, we headed to Fort Cochin, one of our favorite places so far in India. It’s a town that has been a center of the spice trade since 2000BC. The architecture is heavily influenced by the Portuguese (1500 - 1650AD), the Dutch (1650 - 1800AD) and the Brits (1800 - 1950AD), and still has wide open spaces, Chinese fishing nets, a palace, and a synagogue dating back to the 1500’s. However, we had been on the road for quite some time so we were excited to leave Kerela (although we will genuinely miss our driver, Jeevan) to catch a plane up to Gujarat and the comfort of my parent’s beautiful home, and their washing machine.

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Comments

[aarav]

thanks for writing detailed report
thanks for writing detailed report you may please post contact info of driver and guide also which may be useful for travellers