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Published: March 1st 2006
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We arrived by bus to Thekkady (1 minute from Kumily) and as we are grabbing our bags to get off the bus, some Indian guy gets on the bus and asks us if we are Jill and Roy. We quickly realized that at some point, the driver from Munnar got our names while Anna recommended for us to stay at Klaus Garden. So we were locked into the ride - we jumped into the man's rickshaw and arrived at Klaus Garden which was, luckily (it's always luck), great accomodation. Clean and fairly priced, so we stayed. The founder, Klaus, is German/Indian, and his daughter and husband, who is German, happened to be at the guesthouse during our stay which worked out great for us.
Shortly after our arrival and the arrival of a German couple, we convinced Robert (the husband) to take us on a walk to a local spice plantation - Harry's Natural Shakti. Robert strapped on his daughter (he had one of those chest harnesses) and we started our walk through town. Then, the climb started and it was not easy; we got lucky with a quick lift from a Jeep which helps us out a little. Anyway,
Ride on the Jeep
We got a lift by a local up the mountain on our way to the spice farm it was about 45 minutes to the farm owned by a German man and his Indian wife - it has been operating for 14 years. It's an organic plantation where they harvest: coffee, cardamom, pepper, stevia (more on this later) and make german bread, paneer and milk. They convert the cow manure to energy for their house and then use the remains as fertilizer (nothing is wasted here). Since the majority were German, Jill and I caught about half of the explanation on the plantation but it was still informative - they always seemed to go back to German, forgetting that we were there. This was cool though.
And this is where we saw the funniest animal every - the baby water buffalo. I was first to go see it but everyone who came to see started laughing; poor fellow is laughed at by everyone. I don't think the picture does it any justice.
The family was extremely friendly - treating us to Jackfruit while we sat and drank chai. Jill and I walked away with a loaf of german bread and Stevia. Stevia is an all natural sweetner - no calories and supposedly good for people with
diabetes. All I can say is that it really works as a sweetner - and the reasoning for the lack of Stevia at home made sense to me as well (as told by Harry); the sugar and artificial sweetner lobby groups in the US have too much power (money) to let this happen. It doesn't sound very farfetched. And this was after Jill pulled out her tin of Equal tablets, you can imagine what the reaction was to that. So if anyone is interested to an alternative to the articficial sweetners, google Stevia. I haven't googled it yet, so I don't know what the hits will look like.
It was almost sunset we and the German couple followed Stefan, the son, up the mountain to the peak (from where I think we were able to see Tamil Nadu - neighboring state) where we snapped some photos and then headed down back to our guesthouse. We had dinner at a local house but since we were an hour late, the food was mostly cold so it wasn't very enjoyable.
The next day Jill and I took a bus to the Tea factory (Connemara tea - never heard of it)
Baby Water Buffalo
This was a very funny looking animal; at least it was in person and got a tour of the tea making process from the security man who spoke no English. We also booked our wildlife tour for the next day at Periyar where the "main attraction" is tigers...but everyone who goes is usually disappointed because you almost never will see a tiger. India's wildlife population was seriously damaged by the hunting and poaching that occurred earlier in the 1900s.
That night, Jill and I took our second cooking class in Kerala. We made Vegetable Biriyani and Egg Curry. The cool part about this class was that it was in someone's home, and as opposed to the Kochi family, this family was not comparatively well-off - it appears that they represent the majority of Indians (probably middle or lower middle) as the kids were well dressed and attended private school. The house was small with two rooms which each contained two beds. There was no running water in the house and an outhouse for the bathroom. You'll notice in the pictures that we used a wood fire as the gas fire was too small for the pot (and gas is much more expensive than finding some sticks in the yard).
Our bamboo
Manure Slide
It starts up by the cow house and dumps into this underground vat raft tour started at 8:00 am and lasted until 5 ish. It included breakfast and lunch. Based on the multitude of experiences of the sanctuary from other travelers, I did not expect to see much in the preserve. So we started at about 8:30 or 9:00 (everything is always late here) and, literally, just as we start walking, the head guide (with the rifle) tells Yossi and Shalom (I forgot the other's name so I just made up another Hebrew name) that they shouldn't wear their red shirts. We thought this is a joke at first but it wasn't; the animals see red easily and tend to attack red. This would have been nice to know in advance but clearly no one has bothered to include this bit of information in a pamphlet or note. So what happen's? We go on the trek, red shirts and all. I'm all excited because I'm thinking: now we might see something. It didn't help though.
So most of the day was us walking through the forest looking up for birds; the crew of older British folks were more into the birds than the younger generation. We also saw pigs, elephants, monkeys. It
Harry Cutting the Jackfruit
Yes - he's in his underwear; but, he is, the man. didn't matter that all of these animals were very visible outside the sanctuary; these animals were "wild". So, for example, when we spotted the crew of pigs and I said what's that, the guide replied, "Wild boar" and I said, "They look like pigs to me."
Anyway, our encounters with the elephants were a bit exciting since they have been known to attack humans (usually locals who live in the sanctuary). And we had several "close" encounters which didn't seem close to me, but the guides insisted that elephants are very fast. Either way, I tried to keep the Israelies in sight since they were wearing the red shirts; they eventually got a bit scared and took the shirts off. At one point, as we were heading back, we ran into 3 elephants and had to wait, at a considerable distance, until they cleared the area so we could pass.
The story with the sanctuary is that although it is a relatively expensive India activity and you shouldn't expect to see any crazy animals (Africa is probably the spot for that) but it is a nice (not great, nice) place to spend a full day walking through the
forest with camoflauged guides; and bamboo rafting.
We had dinner with our Israeli friends that night and woke up early the next morning to take the bus to Alleppy.
More:
- When an Indian says 5 minutes, it means 20 minutes
- New knowledge: the states of India were partitioned I think in the '40s based on language, as opposed to land marks (i.e. rivers, mountains). Which is why each state has a distinct language although they learn the other languages in school
- Though (in my opinion) I have been fairly diligent about updating the blogs in India, I don't think I'll be able to keep this up (I will still do my best to keep them interesting), thus, post-India if there are some lags between journals, we're probably fine and HAVE NOT been kidnapped, arrested, involved in an accident or anything else bad.
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Steve
non-member comment
Made Up?
Just wanted to clear this up.....SHALOM is NOT a made up name!!!!!!!!!!!!!