Mountain Trekking

The bus ride to Thekkady was about what I expected for one in India – miles of winding through dense traffic, an hour long traffic jam due to a Hindu ceremony, and a perilous climb into the Western Ghat Mountains along roads with steep cliffs, no shoulders and of course no guard rails. It was a long one, but the result has been nice as we now are enjoying the cool air of the mountains of Southern India, a welcome change from the hot and humid climate by the coasts. 

The climb up into the mountains was typical of India, and it amazes me how fearless the drivers here can be. We chugged along the narrow, winding road with little room for error, meanwhile every once in a while another bus or large vehicle would come and pass us, zooming quickly by and then slipping narrowly back into its lane right before the oncoming vehicle set to collide with it. Around the sharp corners they didn’t seem to slow down either, and oftentimes we came within inches of making contact. Bryan, sitting in the front row with a view of the driver, noted one particularly close incident in which our driver tensed and grabbed the wheel, and knowing what they drive through, if he was nervous it must have been a fairly close call.

But we have made it safety to Thekkady and are ready for jeep trekking, a spice walk and elephant rides tomorrow. Based on those you can probably imagine a couple things, one that this is a fairly touristy area, and that they are big on spices here. Actually its spices and tea, and walking down the streets of the city, which are much calmer than the ones of Kochi and Trivandrum, is store after store selling bags of spices, all different types. I’m not sure which ones are specifically produced in the area and which ones are simply sold because unwitting tourists don’t know any better. We also passed many tea plantations while driving up, something new to me and I was surprised to learn that they look almost hedge like in appearance.