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Sarah says:

We have just passed our 3 month traveling anniversary and fully appreciate that perhaps we are just feeling a bit tired, but India is hard and feels like it keeps getting harder. Our latest adventure began on our journey from Kochi to Munnar. Kochi is probably the most touristy town in south India and also happens to be the first Indian town we’ve visited that, despite the guidebook’s frequent use of the word, fits my definition of “charming”. It was lovely: cute streets, clean, quiet, perfect. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay more than two days because the heat was, shall we say, unbearable. We decided to head inward toward the mountains to visit some tea plantations. The climate, we anticipated, would be cooler and a town built by the British for the purpose of tea must be “charming”, right??

One of the things about India that makes me sad is the base level of transportation that it subjects its people to. This is the bus that India thinks is suitable for a 4-8 hour journey - please see picture. If Indians can afford to travel, this is how most of them are doing it and I struggle to understand why it’s necessary to have it be this bare, this difficult. US Prison buses are nicer than this. This bus had hard seats, 3 people to a 2 person bench. The aisle was jam packed with people who stood for our entire 4 hour journey, on top of each other. There was no glass in the windows so our options were to have dust blowing in our face at 40mph or a black shutter that kept all air out. Due to the stifling heat, we chose the former. The twisty-turny mountain roads were not kind to some passengers and when a man a few rows up from me threw up out his window, you guessed it, it came back in through mine. And it stopped like a city bus, frequently, all through the 4 hours. I hoped that it was for people getting off but oh no, it was always for more people to get on. By the time we reached our destination, our asses were so bruised and we both had sharp pains up and down our legs from not ever being able to change sitting position. When we were bombarded by the rick-shaw drivers upon arrival, despite my recent change of heart which I’ve now documented for all the read, I broke down and cried.

This was our state of mind when we checked in to the Poopada Hotel. By now, perhaps you’ve read David’s post about the Poopada and us having to call the police so I won’t bore you with redundancy. I will just say that throughout that incident, my legs were shaking. I was shocked, flabergasted even, by what was happening! And when the two men started pulling on David’s pack and his arm and I saw the look in David’s eyes as he took his pack off to be ready and nimble, I thought, in slow motion, “Oh my God, this is it. Seven years of martial arts and this is how he’ll finally use it. In the middle of India, in the middle of the street, on Easter Day, he’s going to throw down with a slimy hotel manager. ………..Hmm, what kind of arm break would I use right now?!?” It was so surreal!

It took me the entire two hour taxi ride to our next mountain town, Kumily, to calm down from the whole event. The drive between Munnar and Kumily was breathtaking, endless rolling hills covered in tea as far as the eye can see. Here and there, lilac flowers dotted the rich green and sweet little plantation cottages off in the distance provided the finishing touch on the left-over English landscape we were looking for. Before long, we arrived in Kumily, pulled onto a lovely, tree shaded street and stopped in front of our next accommodation. This is when the most beautiful woman in all of India came into our lives. Sujatha was waiting for us on her driveway with the most lovely smile and comforting two-handed handshake. “You must be David and Sarah. Welcome, please come inside.” I felt an instant wave of relief as karma patted us on the head and left us in her capable hands. Advertised as a homestay, this was the first true homestay we’ve managed to find. Most in India feel more like hotels. Sujatha and her husband had converted the upstairs of their house into adorable, simple little rooms - ours had a balcony with a wicker swinging chair which we were nestled in with her homemade Chai before we could blink. David and I just looked at each other and smiled and instantly made the decision to stay longer than we’d planned. We went on to have a truly relaxing 3 days with Sujatha and her family. She was perfect for her job - she loved to talk, had a beaming smile, and something about her manner made it impossible not to relax and feel at home with her.

Kumily is lovely - probably my favorite of the Indian towns with visited. We did a day hike through their sanctuary which kind of looked like what I imagine Kenya looking like. In addition to tea, this part of the country is the center for spice production and the smells were amazing, as you can imagine. Did you now that cinnamon comes from the bark of a cinnamon tree and that nutmeg is the seed of a fruit that looks like a fig? You can use cloves to brush your teeth if you find yourself out in a clove forest without your Colgate. But more than anything, we just enjoyed hanging on our balcony chatting with Sujatha. On our last morning there she invited us to her family dining table to share breakfast with them and as we were leaving we gave each other a big, sincere hug goodbye. She was just what we needed and gave us such a gift by bringing our time in India to such a lovely close.

From there we went on to Varkala, a beach town where I must admit we secluded ourselves in the touristy area and enjoyed the Arabian Sea for the last time, dined on fresh grilled calamari at a cliff-side table in the sand and took deep breaths of appreciation that, after all India had thrown at us, she was sending us such lovely people and places in our last few days.

David and I realize that most of our posts - well perhaps all of them - from India have had a negative slant. We’d like to take this opportunity to clarify for our readers and for our own journals, that we didn’t hate India and we certainly didn’t have a terrible time. We had an amazing time. We saw things we’d never seen before in our lives, we learned an incredible amount about ourselves and were intimately exposed to many sides of this fascinating country. It is true that India is hard. It just is. It is shocking and overwhelming and comes full force, in your face, loudly and full-on and it can suck the energy from even the most well-traveled person and I think that our posts reflect our general fatigue. Though I think we were honest in what we had to say from our own experiences and perspectives, I certainly wouldn’t change a single thing about anything we did. At the end of every karate test, which is meant to take you physically, mentally and emotionally farther than you ever thought you could go, our karate Master always asks, “If you had to get up right now and do it all over again, could you?” and somehow, sincerely, the answer is always yes. But if Ms. Rachael Evans was with us right now asking the same question, I think my answer would have to be no. I need some time. Time to recover and repair but I’ll be back. Oh India, I’ll be back.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 2:53 am and is filed under Global Travels, India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.