December 28-29: Munnar
For four hours, our windowless bus careened around the winding mountain roads, taking hairpin turns in the wrong lane, using the horn to repel other cars. We were lucky that we got on at the first stop and got to sit the whole time, but were unlucky to sit right behind the driver, where the impossibly annoying horn vibrated the seat with its constant blast. In India, the horn was never just used to signal others to get out of the way, but was used constantly, as long as there were other cars in the same general area. I’m inclined to believe that there is some complex system of echolocation going on, since people drive literally all over the road, and seemingly only miraculously avoid one another.
We arrived in Munnar late and immediately caught a rickshaw to the guesthouse that we had just barely managed to reserve while on the bus. An older Indian man, Joseph, met us with a flashlight at the gate and invited us in to his living room, which was adorned with maps and dusty heads of antelopes and other little fanged deer. He heated us a pot of tea, and as we enjoyed our first cups of famous Munnar tea, he began a good-natured monologue about how lucky we were to get a room because, “I am in 14 guidebooks: Lonely Planet, Let’s Go, Frommer’s, Rough Guide, Guide Routarde, Fodor’s…”
The next morning, we finally got a glimpse of our surroundings, and realized that the view from our balcony was actually breathtaking. As Joseph explained to us over morning tea, Munnar is the largest tea-growing area in the world, and some of the thousands of acres formed a spectacular panorama around his house. Though it is a popular vacation spot, especially for Indian tourists, the area surrounding Munnar is very quiet, and we basked in the tranquility after our experiences with Indian city life.
During the first day we took some walks that Joseph recommended, perfected by his years of experience directing travelers. We climbed the paths through the tea-covered hills to the top of the tallest nearby peak and were stunned at the top to see a 360 degree view of tea-covered hills and valleys that disappeared into a low-hanging morning mist. This was perhaps my favorite single moment of India–emerging from the the brush that we walked through to get to the top, unsure if we were going the right way, and bring rewarded with this vista. On the way there and back, we met some colorful tea-picking ladies who were on their lunch break, and curiously stopped to ask our names and nationalities. In the afternoon, we took a second walk, following an intricately hand-drawn map that Joseph made us, that took us in the other direction out of town, past hillside resorts, through a small village, and by cardamom, coffee, and pepper plantations.
The next day, we had big plans to set out early to go to a hilltop station, which was supposed to be another beautiful overlook on the border of Tamil Nadu. “Have you heard about the strike?” Joseph said, when we arrived for tea. It was 7am, so of course we hadn’t. “There is an autorickshaw and taxi driver strike,” he explained. “So no one will take you.” Without a ride, our day would pretty much be shot, and we had stayed in Munnar an extra day to do this, so we were a little upset. “Okay, I know one who may take you. They call him ‘The Black Sheep.’ He does his own thing.” 30 minutes later we were shaking hand with Kumar, “The Black Sheep,” who had agreed to drive us to the hill station despite the fact that no one else in the state was driving. The catch was that he only used the engine when absolutely necessary, and thus it took about 2 hours to go 40 kilometers. He would cut the engine and coast until we puttered to a stop, then hit the gas just long enough to creep up the next hill. Though the driving left a bit to be desired, Kumar was a good tour guide. He stopped so we could get milk tea, to check out some lakes, to show us a tree covered in bee hives (where we caught a glimpse of the local rare and endangered grizzled giant squirrel), and to demonstrate an echo point. The visit to Top Station was entirely uneventful, as the fog was now so bad that were were basically standing on a hill in the middle of a cloud. To make up for this disappointment, we decided to stop at an elephant riding camp on the way back. I was excited to get to interact with a pachyderm, but in retrospect I feel guilty for paying for the novelty of riding an elephant around, and not taking into consideration the quality of the place and treatment of the animals beforehand. I don’t think it was a particularly bad place, but I also don’t think it was particularly good, and the elephants still had to spend all day walking the same loop through the forest to entertain tourists. That said, I still enjoyed my elephant interactions, especially getting to feed and pet our elephant as a reward at the end.
In the afternoon, the strike having lifted, we got a real car to drive us two hours to the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, in hopes of seeing some non-captive animals. As soon as we arrived to meet our guide we were surrounded by greedy monkeys, which hung out near the entry point to try to pilfer food from tourists. Our guide was an incredibly tiny man, with little to no English skills, a machete, and flip flops. He took us on a brisk walk through the preserve, exchanging few words, and using leaves to stop his bleeding when the brambles that we were hiking through cut his (practically) bare feet. He was very good at tracking elephants, and after telling us to stop and wait while he ran ahead a few times, we got some rewarding glimpses of a wild herd in the distance, that was making its way through the underbrush.
Somewhere Near Here. 