We were told by the tour company that the "hotel" would definitely give us breakfast, which we doubted considering there was no restaurant, not even a table and chair to be seen... So we asked around, and after inspecting the "kitchen" we were rewarded with omlettes and fried sweet white bread, not bad actually!
Jeenu picked us up at 10:00, and drove us through to the Eravikulam national park, to chilled classical music. As we arrived, he warned us "the queues will seem long, but as the buses arrive, they move quickly".... Well he was right about the first point! The queue snaked around and around the windy road, must have been about 1000 people all hoping to get into the park! This was due to a genius requirement that the park could ONLY be reached by a bus. There were only 5 small buses, and the roads were so narrow they could barely pass each other... We ended up losing 3 hours of our lives in that queue! We were cursing Jeenu for insisting that we only leave at 10:00, when we could easily have been here by the opening time of 8:00.
We waited and waited, fortunately we had very friendly British people in front of us in the queue, and we swapped stories. They eventually gave up and left, which left us with very friendly Americans, living in Tanzania, to chat to. This really helped the time to pass! In addition to this, only one of us at a time was able to make trips to the shopping shacks around the corner, to purchase tea, home made chocolate, masala chips and pineapples to snack on.
When we finally reached the front of the queue, we paid the tourist price of Rs230 (inc bus fare) + Rs25 for camera. We liked the fact that they force you to use the bus, but still make you pay for it! We squashed into the mini bus and enjoyed the scenery as it snaked its way up the steep narrow winding road into the mountains. The views of the tea plantations were fantastic, and I must admit I do not seem to tire of these beautiful rich green carpets of tea draped over the rolling hills.
At the top we hopped out, free to walk around. We nearly freaked when we saw what awaited us - yet another queue! This time for the bus back down :( Trying not to think about that, we entered the park, excited to try to spot the rare Nilgiri Tahr, the only actual animal in this park. We ended up seeing lots of them. They are basically goats. Yes, we waited three hours to sit in a bus and look at goats. Hmmm.
After a walk around and a near run-in with a vicious Tahr (Werner tried to touch it and it mock head butted him), we headed back to the queue, grabbing ice creams on the way. Fortunately our American friends had beat us down to the queue, and we were able to sneak in with them. At the bottom, it was already close to 16:00 by the time we met up with Jeenu. We asked him if it was still possible to see some sights before the martial arts show we had booked for 18:00. He said yes, and the proceeded to race like a Formula 1 driver to thumping Backstreet Boys tunes. My sister would have loved it. My mother would have hated it!
We reached Mattupatty dam in no time at all, and got out to have a look, along with many other Indian tourists. The dam stretched for miles in untouched forest, and was really a lovely sight. All around the viewpoint hundreds of shacks were selling everything from toys to flutes to food. Jeenu then drove us further around, to Echo point, where hundreds of little Indian kids were screaming to try and hear an echo. We didn't hear anything! But the viewpoint was nice. The formula 1 driving then continued, to old school American beats. We asked Jeenu if he would take us for dinner, and he said he would take us to Munnar town.
We then reached what was for me, the highlight of the day: a Kalaripayattu demonstration. Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaripayattu This is believed to be the oldest martial art in existence, and was born in Kerala. We were really pleased to have booked the day before, as this resulted in front rows seats. The demonstration was fantastic, showing fight sequences using weapons like swords, shields, long sticks, short sticks, daggers, knives and ropes. They moved like true athletes at incredible speeds, and did not hold back with the weapons. The swords sent sparks flying as they clashed and I was sure that one wrong move could have resulted in serious injury. The most interesting weapon was a flexible sword, almost like a metal whip, which was swung about with such speed it must have been incredibly dangerous. They also lit the two ends of two 'fire-sticks' and moved impressively with them.
The fighters invited three members of the audience down, which they lined up while one of them jumped spectacularly over 4 people. The finale was the fire ring, where they started with one, then two, and finally three rings completely aflame, so hot that we could feel it from our seats. Each fighter had to dive through the rings onto a mattress.
After the show, they invited the audience to come down for interviews and photos. All the ladies wanted photos with Lalu, the looker of the troop, and I was no exception. We got some great snaps, and afterwards Lalu asked me if I had done martial arts, he said he could see from my poses that I had some skill... I left grinning and blushing profusely.
Since we had had no lunch to speak of, we headed out for dinner on foot. Jeenu had dropped us, saying that he was "not allowed to take us for dinner" as he was limited on his hours and kms, what a hogwash story, especially after he had earlier agreed to take us! One thing we have learnt in our time here is that some Indians (particularly those in the tourism industry I guess) will always tell you what you want to hear, regardless of whether it is true or not. We have countless examples from the blog so far - "yes you will definitely get the hotel vouchers before you leave", "yes, I'll send the voucher to the hotel", "sure, the train station is only 500m from here", etc.
We walked to the Misty Mountain resort for an amazing buffet dinner (Rs300 per person). The selection was fantastic, with some different things like beetroot pickle, salads, raita, and the best fish curry. Also the hottest fish curry, as we both struggled to cope with the heat of it!
Tomorrow we leave early to get to Alleppey, to board our houseboat, an experience that comes highly recommended, although I'm not that sure what to expect.
- Nix
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Munnar, India
No comments:
Post a Comment