Good morning from Misty Mountain. I have some catching up to do. We arrived here after dark last night, and woke surrounded by mountains layered with tea plants. From Udaipur we flew to Mumbai and then on to Cochin where our driver/ guide met us.
We headed straight up here from Cochin. Well not straight at all. Indeed, after the first 15 minutes or so of small cities surrounding Cochin we started the gentle then ever increasingly steep and winding climb to here. First stop: mangos from a roadside stall. They were perfectly ripe and we peeled and ate them with our hands. Then water. Big water. We've been downing jugs of it laced with electrolytes like it was the morning after, which of course it isn't. This is India.
Each small town shows signs of an active tourist industry, although a day of sight seeing we are not entirely sure why. It does seem to appeal to hippies and hikers. I'm not sure I can tell them apart. Oh, and honeymooners. OMG I've never seen so many couples posing lustfully for selfies.
It's tropical--dense with palm trees, gulleys and valleys. We stopped along the side of the road for a break ( I think our driver needed to cool the engine) and sampled the local tea, hard boiled quail eggs, and something very hot that came from a jar. Even the monkeys couldn't finish it.
As night fell the drive became a crawl, as cars, buses, motorbikes, tutk tuks and trucks snaked their way up the mountain. The down-coming traffic might have ben even heavier until at last we arrived here. This morning I woke to a cool, fresh, misty dawn, the smell of breakfast cooking wafting in the window. The sun popped up at about 7. We've had fluffy rice panckaes for breakfast and are hoping to explore the cardamom plantation behind ( and above) the hotel before out guide picks us up at 9. He has promised a special Kerala style lunch typical of this area, and we have a lot of walking on our itinerary. I think.
Well we've done our sightseeing and at the moment are both suffering the effects of a 3 hour 'safari' (read jeep ride) through some small villages. The morning was more what we expected . We drove through hectares and hectares, row upon row, up and down mountains of mushroomy mounds of tea plants. We learned that the trees grow tall but for commercial harvesting they are kept low and carefully spaced. I cannot imagine picking tea leaves in the heat. It was 34 C or about 95 F this afternoon. But the landscape is remarkable, and we managed to get a feel for the area. We don't have a guide here so mostly our curiosity goes unsatisfied when the driver either doesn't understand us or we don't understand him. We learned a wee bit about the processing of tea, but again even on the English tour it was nearly impossible to follow the guide.
Paying for internet by the minute and it is sooooo slow. I jave my photos off my va era but can't seem to get them to up.oad right now. Will keep trying. And will try to post a bit about Udaipur. We quite enjoyed it.
We are off to dinner. We just learned that there is no drinking in public places. So we can have them bring us liquor from a store I presume, but we would have to drink it in our room!
Maybe not.
We headed straight up here from Cochin. Well not straight at all. Indeed, after the first 15 minutes or so of small cities surrounding Cochin we started the gentle then ever increasingly steep and winding climb to here. First stop: mangos from a roadside stall. They were perfectly ripe and we peeled and ate them with our hands. Then water. Big water. We've been downing jugs of it laced with electrolytes like it was the morning after, which of course it isn't. This is India.
Each small town shows signs of an active tourist industry, although a day of sight seeing we are not entirely sure why. It does seem to appeal to hippies and hikers. I'm not sure I can tell them apart. Oh, and honeymooners. OMG I've never seen so many couples posing lustfully for selfies.
It's tropical--dense with palm trees, gulleys and valleys. We stopped along the side of the road for a break ( I think our driver needed to cool the engine) and sampled the local tea, hard boiled quail eggs, and something very hot that came from a jar. Even the monkeys couldn't finish it.
As night fell the drive became a crawl, as cars, buses, motorbikes, tutk tuks and trucks snaked their way up the mountain. The down-coming traffic might have ben even heavier until at last we arrived here. This morning I woke to a cool, fresh, misty dawn, the smell of breakfast cooking wafting in the window. The sun popped up at about 7. We've had fluffy rice panckaes for breakfast and are hoping to explore the cardamom plantation behind ( and above) the hotel before out guide picks us up at 9. He has promised a special Kerala style lunch typical of this area, and we have a lot of walking on our itinerary. I think.
Well we've done our sightseeing and at the moment are both suffering the effects of a 3 hour 'safari' (read jeep ride) through some small villages. The morning was more what we expected . We drove through hectares and hectares, row upon row, up and down mountains of mushroomy mounds of tea plants. We learned that the trees grow tall but for commercial harvesting they are kept low and carefully spaced. I cannot imagine picking tea leaves in the heat. It was 34 C or about 95 F this afternoon. But the landscape is remarkable, and we managed to get a feel for the area. We don't have a guide here so mostly our curiosity goes unsatisfied when the driver either doesn't understand us or we don't understand him. We learned a wee bit about the processing of tea, but again even on the English tour it was nearly impossible to follow the guide.
Paying for internet by the minute and it is sooooo slow. I jave my photos off my va era but can't seem to get them to up.oad right now. Will keep trying. And will try to post a bit about Udaipur. We quite enjoyed it.
We are off to dinner. We just learned that there is no drinking in public places. So we can have them bring us liquor from a store I presume, but we would have to drink it in our room!
Maybe not.
Hi Carol and Margaret - am following your blog and your pictures are amazing...loving the stories too .. I have some reading to catch up on from your trip so am going to see if I can catch up. enjoy
ReplyDeleteThanks Janice. Off to Thekaddy right now.
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