Our useless map shows a shortcut through the hills, following the route of a 'modern day pilgrimage' to a forest temple at Sabrimaala. Sounded ideal so we set off with the thousands of other pilgrims in cars and buses decorated with orange flowers along the steep twisty roads. I cannot for the life of me understand why 80% of Indian drivers are utterly incapable of staying on their side of the road round a corner. Eventually we arrived at a very large carpark beside a town on a small brown river, packed with people, and a great holiday atmosphere. Groups of pilgrims dressed in orange and black headgear walk amongst the hawkers and traders, burning incense and chanting, a bit like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The pilgrims are required to bathe twice a day which might explain why so many people were in the very unappealing river. Entertainingly, women of menstruating age are banned as they defile the place, ha! We enjoyed a good thali at a pilgrim food hall. Unfortunately our holiday atmosphere ended when it became apparent that the road on our map didnt actually exist and we would have to drive all the way back again. So back we went and the bloody pilgrim drivers get extra air-horn. That night we camped for free in a grassy carpark of a very friendly luxury hotel, and the paying guests got to have the usual nosey around the car and rooftent.The next day, back on the road again towards Kumily where there is a national park with tigers in it. We stopped in at a spice garden, where you pay some rupees and get a guided tour of all the plants. Located on an extremely steep hill, I just could not work out how the car i could see at the top had made it up there, especially when I had to stop and put the landcruiser into low range 4wd (quick Krause, the hubbs).
Very strange indeed... Soon it was all clear though, I wasnt behind the wheel of a Nissan, we were trying to drive up the exit slope! A sign would have been nice. Anyway, the tour was really very good, there were spices, herbs, medicinal and ornamental plants. It was especially interesting to see where various items in your cupboard come from. We learnt some useful things such the difference between black and white pepper, and some useless things such as where castor oil comes from. It turns out that 'all spice' is actually one plant and not numerous mixed together.
So we got to Kumily and camped in another hotel carpark, not bad except my beer went warm whilst trapped by an enthuisastic god-botherer. We watched Benjamin Button on the laptop, cheers Perkins. Turns out that Kumily and its wildlife park are very touristy and quite expensive. We went on a morning boat ride for 2 hours around the lake, where the highlight was watching a number of otters rolling around in the sand for a minute or so before they headed back to the water.
Annoyingly the park authorities refused to let us 4wd around the forest with a machete looking for tigers. We found a dingy cheap locals bar instead where an old guy explained to us how the bears in the forest will first claw out your eyes and then bite off your feet before going in for the real attack. He advised us to climb a very thin tree to escape. I am sure a hairy canadian once told us something similar.
Amongst other things, the state of Kerala is famous for its backwaters - a large area covered by a network of rivers, streams and lagoons, often choked with lilies and water hyacinth. So the following day we drove west out of the hills towards the coast to stay in Alleppey, a town near the centre of this backwater area. Arriving late it was a mission to find a place to camp, and eventually we paid a few rupees to camp in the garden of a nice looking homestay next door to a temple and use their bathroom. What a mistake that turned out to be. We searched out a cheap local bar, had some interesting conversations and watched a drunk auto-rickshaw driver try to drive off
fifteen minutes after managing to get up from the floor. After all that I was not feeling too well with a cold and needed sleep, but we were assured that the deafening temple music and chanting would finish at 10pm, which it did. What they failed to mention that it would start again at 4.30am, oh my god i was so unhappy, luckily Amelia was very calm. Four hours later having got over my earlier murderous temple-music-rage we had a very pleasant two hours being paddled around the leafy waterways by an old guy in his a small wooden boat. It was all very peaceful, punctuated by pistol-shot sounds of local women washing clothes by thrashing them to death on stone pillars by the water. I'm sure it cannot do them any good. Stopping for a half-time coconut, we met a tame eagle. On returning we decided to head north to Fort Kochi, and in the future always check where the nearest temple is before stopping for the night...
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