What is the correct unit of measure of prawns? Some people incorrectly call them shrimps but shrimps are completely different to prawns, they are best fished in places like Morecambe on the north-west coast of England and should be potted with clarified butter and eaten with nothing more fancy than a piece of toast. I digress. The term “King prawn” is so liberally used, describing all sizes of the yummy crustacean from 2 inches upwards which is all wrong. I think I have seen “Giant prawns” mentioned on a menu somewhere on my travels but the ones I had last night should have been billed as “Seriously Super Massive Prawns”. They weren’t actually on the menu so I’m not sure what their official status was but trust me, they were bloody huge. My special dinner consisted of four of these monsters cooked in a spicy Keralan masala with a side dish of bindi, Kerala paratha (more crumbly than traditional ones) and appam a kind of fluffy pancake made with rice flour, all washed down with a Diet Coke. Heerlijk/Delicious (delete as applicable). Bill - 720 Rupees, £10, which is very expensive!
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| Sweet shop on a motorbike |
Anyway, that was last night. I had an extraordinarily early start for me today. Sainu, my driver picked me up from the hotel at 06.45. Breakfast had kindly been packaged up for me and I bade my farewells to Dream Hotel, Cochin and their exemplary service. First stop, Elephants! Ever since I spent a day at Addo in South Africa where I got up close and personal with these majestic animals, I have loved elephants. There’s something about their size combined with their gentleness and the lumbering way they walk that enchants me. Did you know that they are the only animal with 4 knees? Not that I have a knee fetish……About an hour’s drive out of Cochin (the roads were blissfully quiet at this time) we turned off the MC Road at Vallom, through the delightfully named small villages of Koovappady and Kurichilakode and into Kodanad, where we stopped. I took a short walk down a rocky track towards the river where I was greeted by a family of elephants and more white people I’ve seen in a long time! An obvious tourist attraction but for elephant lovers like me, an absolute treat despite the throng of people lining the riverbank.
The elephants were being scrubbed with makeshift loofahs (coconut shells) and enjoying every single second of it. You could tell that in their eyes and their smiles (or maybe I was imagining that bit). I was stroking one of the 2 year old babies and he started purring like a cat so he must have been happy. I wanted to take him home and keep him on my roof terrace.
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| The purring baby elephant |
Totally mesmerised, I admired the regalness of the parents and the playfulness of the little kiddies. Many years ago, I rode an elephant in Goa but I didn’t enjoy it as the poor creature was obviously mistreated and that upset me hugely but this family was not only healthy and beautiful, they were obviously spoiled rotten and why not? Their handlers did have sticks and did have to tie the elephants’ back feet together, to prevent them running off while they watched their parents/siblings/children get scoured but it was only for a short and necessary time. After bath time, the elephants congregated and prepared to parade back to their camp. The big male looked fairly imposing but didn’t care less with me stroking his glorious ears and grabbing his surprisingly cold, ivory tusks. I watched the elephants disappear with a big smile on my face and resumed our journey to Munnar.
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| Cold tusks |
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| Bye bye Mr. Elephant |
There are a fair amount of places in this part of the world ending in “pady”, like Kuruppampady and Kottappady and the afore mentioned Koovappady. No Irish connection to be sure.
I don’t get a few things about India, one of them is their speed prevention methods. The police erect two barriers on each side of the road, creating a chicane in the middle of the road. There are no warning signs indicating the presence of these unmanned, unlit barriers and traffic coming from both directions fight it out on who goes first through this chicane. And this is a safety measure…….
It was a lovely drive through the palm trees, cocoa plants and banana trees. They gave way to Eucalyptus trees and the tea plantations as we climbed over 1,500 metres. Mercifully, there was very little traffic and the roads hadn’t fallen apart.
The weather became cooler, around 28°c compared to Cochin’s 36°c. Shortly before noon, I checked into my hotel, Silver Tips then Sainu took me on a sight-seeing tour of the region beyond Munnar. The scenic tea plantations looked resplendent. The leaves of the tea trees are a vivid green and their pentagonal/hexagonal arrangement is somehow symmetrical and wacky at the same time. The mountains add to the spectacular landscape.
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| A bit of England in Munnar |
There is obviously a set sight-seeing route for tourists who take in The Flower Garden, The Tea Factory, Mattupetty Dam, Echo Point, Kundala Dam and The Tea Museum back in Munnar. I hate following hordes of tourists and I said as much but unfortunately drivers are programmed to do this set routine and not think outside the box. I tried to explain to Sainu that while he was with me that I wanted to go to off the beaten track places but he didn’t understand neither my English nor the concept.
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| Echo Point was so full of litter, I preferred to look at carrots |
The crowds of tourists at both the dams and Echo Point all came with drivers causing unofficial car parks on the roads at these so-called beauty spots supplemented by vast numbers of irritating hawkers. I wasn’t infuriated at all this commotion but I was at the ubiquitous litter dumping. It maddened me, saddened me and demoralised me. I was surrounded by natural beauty and the people of India just destroy it. Devastated, I asked Sainu to take me back to the hotel.
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| Eucalyptus Trees by Kundala "Lake" |
The hotel was disappointing, there was construction work going on which was very noisy and the design of the place caused amplification of any sound whether it me building work, slamming doors, talking and in this hotel, Bollywood music which was piped throughout the hotel’s foyer and corridors. Unhappy with this, I Skyped Sanoj and got him to move to me to another hotel. The joys of having a travel agent! The hotel manager didn’t understand my suggestion that it was a good idea to inform guests that there was construction work going on when they booked and also to be truthful about it. He had kept saying to me, “No problem, work stops in 5 minutes” but it didn’t and I pointed out that it would continue tomorrow but he shook his said and said “No problem”. Eventually I got him to admit that the work, and therefore deafening din would persist during my stay. He looked forlorn at my departure, God knows why, I am the guest from hell. Within half an hour, a car came to pick me up and off I went to the C7 Hotel.
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| View of workers' cottages and tea plantation from the hotel |
My first impression of this hotel was “Wow! The view!” The sun was just setting behind the tea plantations and it was so peaceful on my balcony just watching, listening and contemplating. The hotel itself was nothing to write in a blog about, I had read that the food was terrible so made a mental note to eat in town, just a few hundred yards away, for lunch and dinner.
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| Just after sunrise, taken from my room's balcony |
Munnar is at an altitude of 1,600 metres and when the sun disappears, the temperature plummets rapidly, possibly as much as 15-20° in 90 minutes. When I left Wayanad, I shoved my fleece into the bottom of my suitcase but in Munnar, not only did I have start rummaging to the depths of my case for my fleece, my jeans, trainers and scarf were also required and I was still cold. The power walk in the pitch dark into town warmed me up, as did the aloo gobi dinner.
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