Thekkady

Writing you all is very difficult! The last two transcribed journal entries took 3 or 4 trips to the internet shop. The power is very unreliable here and fails perhaps 30 minutes of every couple hours. The first time it happened I gasped in annoyance with my lost efforts. No one else uttered a sound. Now I have learned to save frequently and go with the flow.

 

Yesterday half of our group opted out of taking the public bus from Madurai to Thekkady. It was just too hot and I did not feel like competing with baskets of live chickens for a place to stow my duffel. It was a nice comfortable ride of about 4 hours with air conditioning and frequent stops for photos, quick field trips to view local industries, and an interesting lunch. We arrived in Thekkady to find it a pleasant mountain plateau city with relatively clean streets and the best hotel we have stayed in. (It even featured about 5 minutes of hot water in the shower before turning cold!)

 

We had time to look about town on foot and buy a few snacks for an early trekking breakfast. A very bumpy tuk-tuk ride took us to a local family home for dinner. We first toured around the garden and were introduced to the myriad of spices grown in the region - clove, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, coriander, mace, nutmeg... I can't recall more. The garden was lovely, but we arrived just before sunset and half of our viewing was by flashlight. The garden was filmed by the BBC recently and will be one of it's Around The World In 80 Gardens series, appearing this coming March. Dinner was a fine halal, Muslim Indian feast. We ate in the local style. Food was served family style onto banana leaves and eaten with the right hand. (The left hand is not proper at all, but it was a faux paux overlooked by our host.)

 

This morning we woke early, too early, after a night made restless by the vivid dreaming brought on by the anti-malarial medicine Malarone. We left the hotel at 6 and rode tuk-tuk to the Periyar National Park to hunt for tigers. The trek of 3 hours or so in the rain soaked tropical forest did not reveal any tigers. We did see a couple wild pigs. The tropical rain forest is remarkably similar to our Oregon temperate rain forest! The plants and animals are different, but the overall look and feel is similar. One important difference is we don't have leeches in Oregon, or at least not like they do here. All of us wore protective socks covered with tobacco dust, but it was not quite enough. The leeches sized from 1/2 an inch to 3 inches long inch-wormed with amazing speed to our feet. Standing still for a minute would bring many of the disgusting beasts creeping all over our shoes trying to find a way to flesh. We only suffered a few bites amongst us. I had one on my chest from one that managed to creep up that far. It had its dinner without causing me any sensation, leaving only a small bleeding wound.

 

This afternoon Susan and I each had amazing Aruvedek (?) massages. The massage was not like any I have had before. It was a bit like having music played on my skin from head to toe with great waves, and subtle nudges, all soaked in herb scented oil. The massage was followed by a steam bath in an old fashioned steam box where your head pokes out the top.

 

Tomorrow we are heading into the Keralan backwaters where we will be staying in a villager's home for the night. There will be no internet. There may be no electricity or plumbing, too.

 

Namaste! (BTW - someone asked what does that mean. Namaste is the Hindi word used for hello or goodbye. It literally translates to "the divine in me recognizes the divine in you." That is a nice alternative to "S'up homes.")

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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com