In the Tea Gardens of Munnar and Spice Gardens of Thekkady

Vacation: To be or not to be?

The long weekend of Diwali, which got even more extended by the Karnataka Rajotsav holiday on 1^st November, was too tempting. There was holiday for 4 days on a trot. And yet that was barely 2 weeks after a supposed exotic vacation in Lakshadweep. Had it not been for the planned Lakshadweep vacation, I wouldn’t have thought a second time about planning another vacation. But then I thought again. Should I or should I not?

“Don’t you think the two vacations would be in too quick a succession?” Debreena had a valid point.

 I thought for a good 5 minutes. I weighed the pros and cons of going for a vacation vis-à-vis not going. And I found no reason why I should not plan a vacation, even after scratching my head all the time! Once I decided that I am going (of course with family), the next obvious question was, where to? In 4 days I cant go to the Himalayas and be back. So, it has to be near. We wont enjoy the sea as the Lakshadweep hangover would not have gone. So, I needed to think something totally different and yet equally appealing. I would not be going for a vacation for the heck of it.

One place that I can always reliably fall back on is Kerala: God’s Own Country. I don’t know about God (pun intended), but what I can definitely say Kerala is its (my) Own Country. After a few searches in the net, I zeroed in on Munnar and Thekkady, a place we visited around 10 years back – just after our marriage. But, to be honest, we don’t have enough fond memories of the place. It was a combination of lack of experience and poor planning. So, here we go – a second chance with an added member, our daughter, who was not there with us the first time.

Reaching out for the beautiful moments and things in life

The Lakshadweep hangover

The flight from Lakshadweep, actually Agatti, had a stopover in on Cochin on 15^th October, Saturday. “We will be in this city again within the next 14 days for another vacation”, I let out the plan looking out of the world’s first solar-powered airport.

“Yeaaaa”, my daughter shouted as the co-passenger gave her a weird look

“I can’t think anything of a vacation right now. We are yet to return home from this one. There are loads of clothes to put in the washing machine. And we are already away from home last 10 days. Our house would need some serious cleaning.”, It seemed Debreena was very much in the beaches of Lakshadweep.

In the first few days Debreena was still in trance mode. Reference of the Lashadweep crawled during our conversation.

“The sea green painting on this wall is not like as we had seen in Lakshadweep.”

“We will set up an aquarium, but the sand should be white, like in Thinakara”. I reminded her that we didn’t bring any white sand from Thinakara – a big mistake.

And in the dinner tables, when a grilled pink perch arrived “It reminds me of the colourful fishes during our snorkeling. It was so amazing!”

And when I reminded her that we have another vacation coming up shortly, she kept on saying that she can’t believe we have such a back-to-back vacation.

“It’s like I am on a three-course meal for lunch and somebody is talking about the plans of a grand Mughlai Cuisine for dinner.”

“I think I have to take another vacation to shed the hangover of this vacation.” I said, thoughtfully.

The inevitable day and time had come, wherein we had to board the overnight train to Cochin.

29^th October, 2016. Saturday

We reached there early morning, where a spotless white Swift Dzire car waited for us.

“Hi, I am Joseph”, introduced the smiling driver with the typical bushy Malayalee moustache.

We had our breakfast and was through the busy streets of Cochin, soon diverting to a highway that took us to Munnar. In between we halted at a roadside coffee shop, opposite to a waterfall. We are yet again on another vacation!

Amidst the tea gardens of Munnar

The weather in November is generally pleasant. And as we took the hilly road, we felt that cool breeze. And then there was greenery all around, a hallmark of the state of Kerala. Anywhere you go, you see that tropical green forest. That’s the beauty of India. Every state is so much like an independent country. Since school days it has been drilled inside my head to parrot “In India there is unity in diversity”. It’s a very big statement for a school kid. We can still get a feel of the unity when we cheer for our Indian cricket or tennis team. But diversity? When my world was all that was around in my small town and once in a blue moon a vacation to the mountains or seas it was difficult to fathom the meaning and depth of the word “diversity”.

I knew I had to make some diversion before we entered the main town of Munnar. As soon as Munnar was in sight on some distance mountains, Debreena started tracking on the GPS. It was already around 3 hours in the car It was around lunch time. Somewhere during the journey we lost the sun on the way. As we approached the tea gardens and the mountains, the clouds came buzzing around.

“Take this right turn”…we did

“Go straight…after 5 km you would find a school. Take the second left from there….” We kept following the instruction that came from behind. What came from all around was rain. The intensity increased as we neared our resort – it was supposed to be in the middle of a grand tea estate owned by the TATA Tea. We were able to see the resort. I had seen it in the photos. But the road that led to the place was single lane. And that too muddy. The last 50 metres was downhill. The rain picked up full force. The car skidded as it got down. The helpful staffs of the hotel rushed with big umbrellas as they saw us coming.

Ours was the supposed best room of the resort. On the top floor. And that’s because I had booked it a good six months earlier, when most would not have been thinking anywhere around. And I ensured we have the best room to stay. The windows were huge. We opened them. A gush of fresh wind with a splash of rain entered in the room. We ordered lunch and looked out of the window. Rows and rows of small and sturdy tea plants. All uniformly cut. At places stood tall trees and then tea plants again. There was no respite from the rain. The lights were fading fast. The mountain range of the Nilgiris hills became a faint outline, unless it disappeared from our sight. Gudiya and I had fun playing nonsensical games and then catching breath by watching the rain outside. Debreena was engrossed in actually walking. When two cars came face to face on that single lane, one had a hard time reversing and giving way to the other car. The electric wires that passed from the front of our window posed an unwelcome obstacle for the camera. And yet we found a few crows and sparrows sitting on them and shedding the water from their wings. Afternoon rolled into evening and evening crawled into dusk and dusk disappeared into a dark night. The clouds came crawling down. They were now hovering over the tea gardens, like cows returning to their herds, like school boys dragging their cricket bats as they wrapped up the day’s play.

It was raining monotonously outside. At times people under colourful umbrellas made way to or from the resort. It was fun to watch them as all you can see is a moving umbrella through the alleys of the tea garden and then when they came out in the open you saw that someone was

Looking at the tea garden we sipped tea, lazily. As the darkness shrouded the place, another resort around 100 metres away, had its lights lit up. The sound of the rain stopped sometime back. I tried to go out and take photo of our resort and our room. Hardly a few metres and I found my sneakers grappling in the sticky mud. I ventured no further and meekly returned to my room. A big family was occupying a couple of rooms downstairs. Their loud laughter and high decibel discussion went through the roof, much to our annoy. Gudiya got bored and switched on the TV for some Chota Bheem cartoon. I got a call from the office about some urgent submissions that needed to be done. So the laptop had to leap out of my bag. Debreena was still reading the book. Our activities came to an end when dinner was served. Post dinner while Debreena and Gudiya got under the blanket, I stared at them enviously. I was awake for a couple of more hours, working on my laptop. And when I decided to shut it down, I looked out again one last time. It was total darkness. The lights of the distant resort was switched off. It was Diwali in two days, which means it would be new moon on Monday. And whatever slice the moon had left, was behind the dark clouds. I heard the croaks of frog from outside, interrupting the pittar-patter of the rain. It was the proverbial rainy nights, where the novelists plot some murders or the movie directors express the sensuous and passionate side of love between love birds. The philosophers and introverts would look at the darkness and try to find its meaning. I looked inside. Debreena and Gudiya were in deep sleep, cuddled under the blanket. I joined them.

30^th October, 2016. Sunday

Getting around Munnar

The morning was glittering. The distant Niligiri mountain range that was defeated by the clouds since the evening, was back with head held high. The morning rays of the sun glittered on them.

“Do we really have to travel another 100 kilometres today to Thekaddy today? This was such a lovely place to have a relaxed vacation”, Debreena said.

“I am afraid, we don’t have an option.”

We got refreshed, took a shower and went to a tea garden visit. In between we could see how cars struggled to climb uphill in the slippery muddy road and how their 4X4 car pulled out one from the mud. After an initial hiccup, our car was safely on the road. We loaded our bags. The guide gave us the standard lecture on the tea plantation, its workers, the tea plants. And all the while I was admiring the hundreds of grasshoppers that swamped the place. We had seen them last evening from our room.

 After that we drove to the Kanan Devan tea factory. It was a good experience, watching how the tea, that is so delicately served at homes and hotels and in such hurry in trains and shops, is brought to the cups from the plants. Tea, which is the world’s 2nd most popular drink after water, was lapped up as a popular drink in India only around 1920s, which is not even a century back! We bought some tea packets and headed for the Mattupetty Dam. There was a scenic places where the tea garden slope has a perfectly symmetrical rows of tall trees. I remember having stood here last time. But like in all tourist places, the beauty is now ruined by stalls and more by a huge commercial billboard that displays the name of the tea company. Its like you go to the Taj Mahal and find a huge placard displaying the name of the contractor who maintains it and keeps it clean daily! The way to the Mattupetty dam was lined by cars. When we reached the dam we wondered whether there was anything worth coming here. We turned our car back, had lunch in the Munnar city and was again to our next destination, Thekkady, a town in Nature which was about a hundred kilometres away. It was getting cloudy.

On the way to Thekkady

Just before entering the town of Thekkady, Debreena had the GPS on. The name of our “tree house” was Monsoon Retreat. I have seen its reviews and photos in Tripadvisor. The GPS told us to leave the main road for a single lane road and then a delicate turn. Ouch! The turn was just enough for a bicycle to turn. So, Joseph got down asking the locals for the direction. Some people already craned their necks from their houses and watched how a car got trapped inside. I am sure this was not the first time they saw such a scene

“There is another road from the other side”, Joseph said after getting direction from a youth.

When we went from the other side, there was hardly any decent road. It was just wide enough for the car to make way. Even an auto rickshaw coming from the other side had to park itself on the courtyard of a road-side house to make way for our car. We were so relieved to see an arrow on the right: “Monsoon Retreats”. That road went down. At the dead end on the left was a big gate and lots

of trees. Standing between them were cottages more like tree houses.

“Next time don’t book at such remote places. I wonder how this place will be at night” Debreena commented as soon as she stepped out of the car.

I was still struggling to find where the owner was. I was almost lot in the rows of tall trees. I called out his name quite a few times. And then I found a lanky young person peeping from behind a 6-feet tall cardamom plant. He walked upto me and in a deep voice said “Hi, I am Subish!”

I had already exchanged mails and phone calls with him for the last few months. He showed us our tree house. It was about 10 feet above the ground. I sat on the balcony as darkness set in. The birds came to their nests. A few Greater Racket-tailed Drongo perched on the trees around. Their long tail flickered every time they tweeted. A woodpecker was nimbling at a ripped-open ripe jackfruit. And then soon another one joined. There was a papaya tree just beside our tree house. A sparrow came hopping on it. A jungle babbler was pecking on a bunch of red cherries. It was becoming darker. Gudiya and myself started playing chess on the balcony. But my mind was more occupied by the Nature. Debreena sat on the chair in the balcony, sipping a cup of tea, while Gudiya and I were having coffee with Good Day biscuit. It was very quiet and peaceful. To add to the charm, the mobile signal was weak. Soon the lamps of other tree houses started glowing. Debreena and Gudiya went inside. Debreena was reading a book; Gudiya was playing with her dolls. I was still outside. The weather was very pleasant. I was staring at the darkness and , yet, didn’t know what I was looking for. The crickets started chirping; the frog started croaking. There was no TV in the cottages.  So, its only the sound of the nature that drowned me. We walked carefully through the dark paths to the dinning place and had an early dinner. And then back to the balcony again. I realized that my nerve has soothed considerably in the last few hours. I could feel the serenity inside. As if, I can hear my heart beat too. It was hardly nine and yet it felt to so much at peace. At that time the sound level of the traffic at Bangalore would be piercing the clouds! To top it, it was the night before Diwali night. It was impossible to find the feeble moon from behind the clouds and the big trees. So, it was pitch dark in Monsoon Retreats, except a few strays of light that found its way through the long and short leaves and branches of the trees.

31^st October, 2016. Monday

At the Periyaar National Park

The next morning we had plans to go to the famous Periyaar Lake. We thought of taking a boat ride around the lake. After around 20 minutes of drive in the morning through the empty narrow roads, we reached the entrance of the Periyaar National Park around 7:30 AM. We thought we were among the first to enter in. But soon we realized how wrong we were. The road inside the park was wide and foggy. The huge trees bent over the road forming a canopy. From a tree top a cuckoo’s shrill voice

pierced the air. A few monkeys chattered as they danced from one tree to another. When we reached the ticket counter to buy the ticket for the boat ride, we found ourselves at the end of a huge queue. We were definitely not the early birds. I stood there and realized we didn’t have much chance to make the ride. Most of the tickets were sold online. Whatever few was available for over-the-counter purchase would be wrapped up by those standing ahead of me in the queue. Monkeys kept jumping on the asbestos roof, scarring off some visitors. At last the inevitable bad news flowed in, “No tickets”. The queue soon dismantled. People went in different directions. Some went back, some st on the benches around with a dejected look, while other strolled towards the lake. We sat on bench on the shore of the lake, which looked more like a waterbody, and looked at the distant boats getting filled by people, who were marching towards the jetty with the look of victorious army. A colourful kingfisher sat patiently on a tree looking at the placid waters of the lake. Our expression was no different. While the kingfisher was up in the morning in search of a
basic necessity for survival, we were just in search of quenching our appetite of wanderlust. When we realized that there was indeed no chance of any boat ride this time or even the next one after a couple hours, we thought it was a good time to take leave.

We lazily returned to our car. It was still foggy.

Spicing up the day

Now we had the whole day at our disposal. And there was no plan or place to go. It was all about admiring Nature, watching the birds and the bees. There was a small artificial tank just in front of our cottage. There was supposed to be a snake inside. We waited for a long time to catch a glimpse of it. But, in vain. We explored the plants near our tree house. There were cardamom plants and pepper plants. Being a foodie and a decent cook myself, I was familiar with all the species. Now it was good to know how the plants look like. In the afternoon we took a trip to a Spice Plantation. It is quite common in this part of the world. In fact, it was just behind our stay. For a student of botany a tour like this is more like a thrust-upon fieldwork. For us, it was a casual walk. What looked haphazard and bushy at first sight, soon looked a carefully planted garden. A few pineapples “bloomed” in one

corner of the garden. A coffee plant had coffee green and red seeds hanging from it. A cocoa fruit had just burst open. And cluster of figs hung from the plant like bells.

We peeled some bark off a cinnamon tree, rubbed it on our palms and smelt the refreshing odour. Our tour guide broke a small branch from a small plant and rubbed it on a rough surface, exposing the bright yellow colour inside. It was turmeric. The turmeric that I had in my kitchen never smelt so good! There was a watch tower, which we climbed. Then we walked on a bridge made of rope, which led to a tall tree house, at least 20 feet off the ground. A spider was busy weaving a web between two branches of a tree. There were a few guinea pigs in one cage and hens in another. A big tank had some fishes, which ate plants. So, when the guide threw some leaves, the fishes surfaced and munched those leaves happily, before going underground again. During the tour I also gathered some spicy information about spices. For example, white, black or red pepper originate from the same plant. The difference lies in the way we process them. The end of the planned tour saw us standing in front of a shop in the garden that sells fresh spices. It was a good business strategy. We succumbed to the plan and ended up buying a few packets of this and that. On our way to Monsoon Retreats we stopped by a shop to get a packet of cashew nuts and a few more dry fruits. By the time we were in our tree house, another evening welcomed us. And I saw the evening gradually rolling into a dark night as the twitter of the birds gave way to the sound of the insects.

There were lightning in the night and I desperately hoped for some rain. The sound of rain on the trees would have been worth listening before going to bed. I even smelt petrichor and a few drops even fell on us when we went out of our tress house for dinner. But it never went beyond that.

1^st November, 2017, Tuesday

On our way back 

Our last day of the trip. As if to bid us a royal farewell, a huge pink lotus bloomed in the small tank. A grasshopper hovered around another bud. Gudiya and I were taking photos of the birds who flew around. Debreena was packing.

“Its actually a nice place…we should come here again”, she said, looking back, as the wheels of our car rolled.

For lunch we went to a restaurant, where we had lunch the previous day too. It was run my women-only staffs and were rated high in Tripadvisor. Kerala is quite a modern state. Its literacy rate is the highest in India, close to 100%. 

Our train to Bangalore was at 8:35 PM from Ernakulum, which is very near to the Cochin railway station, where we arrived a few days back. The distance was a good 160 KM, while I thought it was only 120 KM. So, it would take around 5 hours and I had calculated not more than 4 hours! At one stretch, the road had rows of rubber trees of either sides and at another there were pineapple plants. A deep cut was made on the trunk of the rubber tress and a pot was placed below it. And the juice trickled in it. And then there was something happening outside which was more than a trickle or a dip. It was the heavy downpour, that is so typical of Kerala. In the month of November I hardly expected it to rain and that too with this intensity. The windscreen wiper of our car moved

vigourously. And our driver, Joseph, was having a hard time looking the road ahead. But there was no sign of the rain getting abated. Water logged on the roads. People covered themselves in raincoats as they walked by or got hidden under huge umbrellas. Vehicles moved with parking lights and headlights on. It got darker than normal. While I always enjoy this type of rain (I realized I am a pluviophile), I was also keeping a watch on my watch. The google map showed we will reach the station at around 8 PM. A big traffic jam in the city could easily delay by 30 minutes, bringing the ride to a nail-biting finish, as we would struggle to catch our 8:35 PM train. Joseph realised our situation and drove steadily through. But driving in that rain by straining his eyes and craning his neck soon stressed him out. He requested for a coffee break. It was still raining very heavily. Getting out of the car and stepping into the roadside restaurant seemed a challenge. The staff from the restaurant came running with huge umbrellas. But that could not save us from getting partially wet. We had hot cups of filtered coffee with dosa.

We reached the railway station in time. The rain had stopped by them. There were just a few drops that fell here and there. I went to get dinner for the night. Soon after I returned, the arrival of the train was announced. We walked with our bags to the platform and boarded the train.

The voyager in me

Within half an hour the train passed by rows of solar panels. Those were the ones that provide power to Cochin airport, world’s first airport that is solely powered by solar energy. We were here about twenty days back when our flight hopped in here before landing in the Agatti island of Lakshadweep. As I looked out of the window, the darkness, interrupted by occasional lights, reminded me of sitting on a chair in the balcony of Monsoon Retreats and feeling the darkness. The last four days we have been to the tea garden and spice garden, the tea factory and the huge lake; heard sounds of insects and twitter of colourful birds; walked in a foggy mornings and watched the evening blend into night; smelt the fresh air after the rain and the refreshing odour of the turmeric stem; felt the silence and absorbed the darkness…and the list goes on.
What may look like a slam dunk vacation for most, is always a new expedition and experience for me. In every vacation I become a Christopher Columbus or a Marco Polo on a new voyage in search of a new world. And as my discovery of tea gardens and spice gardens sink in, plans of my next voyage begins to take a shape. In a few weeks the wind will again hit the sail and the ship will, once again, leave the shore of a monotonous and mundane land in search of the unknown.