March 19-25, 2014: Munnar and the Cardamom Hills

I left the heat and humidity of Cochin on the 19th to head east to the cool of the Cardamom Hills.  Before leaving I took a final walk around town before breakfast, spending most of the time around the fishing nets and market.  Besides watching all the fishing activity, I saw several big ships pass by and had good views of the whitewashed colonial church across the water on Vypeen Island, with palms trees and fishing nets along the coast in front and on either side of it.

I'd planned to take the ferry across to Ernakulam and then a bus from there to Munnar in the hills, but the guy in charge of my hotel recommended taking a bus that left from Fort Cochin, about five minutes' walk from my hotel, to the city of Aluva, north of Ernakulam, and then a bus from there to Munnar.  The bus headed south down the peninsula to a bridge crossing over to Willingdon Island, passing the naval base, and then to Ernakulam.  We passed the main ferry jetty in Ernakulam about 40 minutes after leaving Fort Cochin and reached Aluva through heavy traffic about an hour and a half after leaving Fort Cochin.  In Aluva I received the disheartening news that buses to Munnar only passed through town.  I had to stand almost an hour in a hot part of the bus station waiting for the bus to come by, and when it came it was packed with passengers.  I hopped on and fortunately got a seat not too long into the almost four hour trip to Munnar.

The bus headed east on a hot, humid afternoon.  For the first hour or so the bus climbed hardly at all, as we passed through densely populated areas and made stops in two towns.  The bus cleared out a bit after the towns and we began our ascent into the hills, crossing the Periyar River.  We passed rubber plantations, hillsides covered with coffee plants, and quite a few cardamom plants, more than I had ever seen anywhere else, as we rose.  I could understand why this section of the Western Ghats is called the Cardamom Hills. We kept climbing and the air became cooler.  The sky had clouded up but the mountains were lovely.  Tea plantations started appearing after we reached about 3500 feet elevation and nearing Munnar they seemed to carpet the hills, covering whole hillsides.  We followed a river past the tea covered hills and higher mountains beyond and reached Munnar, at a little over 5000 feet elevation, just before 5.  From the town center I walked back the way the bus had come for less than a mile to a  hotel at the southern edge of the town of about 70,000 people and checked in.  I sat in the cool air on the hotel's balcony as the clouds turned black. Soon after 6 it began to rain and rained for an hour or so.  My room that night felt wonderfully cool, 70 degrees versus 86 in my room at night in Cochin.  I slept well under a couple of blankets.

The sun was out the next morning, though there were clouds in the sky, too.  Before breakfast I walked south a half mile or so along the road I had arrived on, past tea covered hillsides to a dam, and then came back.  After a good breakfast of an omelet, buttered toast, and cardamom tea, I set off on a walk about 9:30 under sunny skies.  I walked west into a valley towards the Letchmi Tea Factory, five miles up the valley.  The road was not steep.  In fact, according to my altimeter, the rise was only about 200 feet.  The walk was beautiful, past tea covered hillsides and with very little traffic, mostly auto rickshaws taking people up and down the little valley.  The road paralleled a river, with ferns and bamboo growing on the banks in places.  Lots of wildflowers grew along the way.  Near the start I spotted workers spraying the tea bushes on a steep slope.  A guy below told me they were spraying for mites.  There were houses and a few very small villages along the way, lived in by tea workers.  The people along the way were very friendly.

The sky clouded up shortly before I reached the tea factory just before noon.  I walked a bit further up the valley to within sight of a larger village beyond the factory, and then turned back as the noon whistle went off at the factory.  Friendly workers, mostly women, passed me heading to the village for their lunch break.  The workers here are mostly Tamils.

As I walked back down that beautiful little valley, the sun came out briefly now and then.  For a while I walked with three women tea pluckers as they returned to the tea bushes after their lunch break.  One spoke a very little English.  She asked me my name and where I was going.  I asked her the same, making a picking motion and saying, "Picking Tea?"  She replied, "Plucking."  Later, after they had left the road to climb a path leading high up a tea covered hillside, I came across twenty or so big bags of freshly picked, er, plucked tea along the road.  A bit later I walked with two sisters, also tea pluckers, who looked very much alike.

Later still I stopped to talk with four friendly kids, one of whom, Lakshmi, was a very pretty 11 year old girl who spoke excellent English.  She told me she went to an English medium school and had been studying English for six years.  She was obviously very intelligent and fun to talk to.  She told me her father was a Tamil born in Kerala who worked on vehicles for the tea company while her mother was from Tamil Nadu and worked as a plucker.  The boy among the four of them told me to wait and then ran off down the hillside to a strawberry patch and picked (or perhaps plucked?) a few strawberries.  Then he climbed a tree to pick a few very small guavas.  He ran back and gave me two of the very sweet red and white strawberries and three of the small guavas.  The guavas were minuscule, about the size of large blueberries, but looked just like guavas and tasted delicious.  While we were talking and I was taking photos of the kids, an old woman passed by and asked to have her photo taken.  I happily complied and showed it to her.

I had been feeling a few rain drops now and then.  About 3, when I was only about a half mile from my hotel, it began to rain steadily.  I pulled out my umbrella, which I had pulled out earlier in the day as protection against the sun.  You often see people in Kerala using umbrellas as parasols against the hot tropical sun.  By the time I reached my hotel about 3:15 it was raining hard, and it rained the rest of the afternoon.  I've heard the western slopes of the Cardamom Hills get 3000 to 7000 millimeters (about 120 to 275 inches) of rain every year, the vast majority during the heavy monsoon from June to September.

The next morning was sunny and cloudless.  After breakfast I set off on another walk about 8:30.  I walked south along the road to Cochin to the little dam where I had walked the morning before and crossed the bridge near the dam to the other side of the narrow river.  I continued south along the river, rising on a narrow but not very busy road along a hillside covered with tea bushes.  The area was very scenic and pleasant in the early morning sunshine.  I climbed only about 100 feet in elevation with the views across the river and south along the road to Cochin getting better all the time.  Eventually, I rounded a tea covered hillside and had great views south of more tea covered hills and higher brown mountains.  The road now led downhill as I passed more tea and a trash filled, ugly little village, with a couple of hotels and several more being built.  Just beyond the village were great views south as the narrow road I was on entered a dense and beautiful tropical forest.  At times I could see tea covered hills through the tall trees of the forest.  Cardamom plants were growing all over the place under the trees.  Few cars passed and the area was beautiful, with sunlight filtering in through the tall trees.

A little more than two hours after setting off, after walking about three miles, I reached a spectacularly located hotel, a series of bungalows called Tall Trees.  I spent about two hours there, first reading the newspaper in the reception building and then looking around.  The place is set on a steep hillside under, well, tall trees, with lots of cardamom plants, beautiful brightly colored flowers, and much other vegetation all around.  Through the trees I could now and then spot the ridge lines of the mountains above.  It is a beautiful place and was almost deserted.

Just before 1 p.m. I had a chicken salad sandwich sold at a little stand on the road and then headed back the way I had come.  The sun was still out and the forest beautiful in the speckled sunlight. I had descended about 400 feet to reach Tall Trees, so the return trip was steeper.  Just after the ugly village I found the Windermere Estate, which I had managed to miss on the way to Tall Trees.  I looked around that luxury hotel, also with bungalows.  The views are fantastic.  I could see the forest I had walked through and the high mountains above the forest, but there was no sign of Tall Trees or anything else I had passed in the dense forest.  I could see where the road emerged from the forest heading to more tea covered hillsides.

When I got to the bridge and the dam, instead of crossing I continued on the almost vehicle free little road on the east side of the river, a longer but more pleasant route back to my hotel.  I passed a tea factory, with huge amounts of wood gathered alongside the main factory building.  The area around Munnar has lots of groves of eucalyptus, planted from seeds from Australia by the planters to provide firewood for the factories and homes of the workers.  The road made a big loop around a swampy area adjacent to the river and passed the High Range Club, the former club of the planters.  I looked around inside the club a bit until being told by the manager I wasn't welcome.  There is a golf course, or at least a few holes, on one side of the club.  These mountains were formerly called the High Range of Travancore.  Tranvancore was the princely state, with a maharaja, that in pre-independence India ruled the southern third or so of Kerala, plus a small part of what is now Tamil Nadu down to the southern tip of India.  Near the High Range Club I crossed a pedestrian bridge over the river close to my hotel, which I reached about 3:30.  The sun was still out, though there were now some clouds in the sky.  The sky, however, was mostly clear at sunset.

The next morning, too, was sunny.  It was a Saturday and I knew Munnar and its environs would be flooded with Indian tourists from the hot lowlands.  After breakfast I walked into the town center in time, I thought, for the 9 o'clock bus to Top Station, a bit more than 20 miles west of Munnar.  The 9 o'clock bus had left early, so I had to wait for the 10 o'clock bus, which to my disappointment left not early but late.  However, the climb from Munnar through tea covered hills to Top Station was absolutely beautiful in places.  I have never seen hills so extensively covered with tea.  Fringing the tea plantations in places are thick tropical forests, all very beautiful in the morning sunlight.  Above are rugged high brown mountains.  It took us a little more than an hour to rise the 1500 feet or so from Munnar to Top Station, passing a couple of dams and reservoirs along the way.  In places scores of cars, vans, and buses were parked, having deposited Indian tourists at some scenic spot, often with rows of ugly food and souvenir stands alongside the road.

Top Station is right near the border  with Tamil Nadu, on a road leading to Kodaikanal, where I had been a little more than a month earlier.  Getting off the bus I walked to a viewpoint along a ridge with spectacular views.  Despite my late arrival, after 11, the view was great, though clouds fringed the jagged mountaintops to the south and haze partially obscured the view southeast down to the plains in Tamil Nadu, at about 1000 to 1500 feet elevation, I think, south of Kodaikanal.  A long, steep valley led down to the plains.  Below the jagged crests of the long row of mountains to the south I could spot the tea plantation that is said to be the world's highest, at 8500 feet elevation.  To the southwest are more steep, jagged mountains, making almost an amphitheater with an outlet to the southeast and the plains.  The place is called Top Station, at about 6500 feet elevation, because a ropeway used to lead down to the plains to bring up supplies and bring down tea.

I ended up spending well over two hours at the viewpoint, as I willingly missed the 12 o'clock bus, and started up too late for the 1 o'clock bus.  The sun disappeared while I was there, but the clouds did not obscure the views.  I watched some guys walk down the steep path from the viewpoint.  You can walk all the way down to the plains.  In a forested section below (much of the area below was grassy) I spotted a few farmhouses.  One guy, seemingly a local guy, trudged up the steep path while I was there.  I enjoyed my lengthy stay, despite the occasional crowds of noisy Indians.  There was lots of trash around, too, though I was amazed to see a guy with a sack picking up, not very thoroughly, some of the litter.  That is a first for India for me, I think.  Later, I saw him burning it, noticing the acrid smell of burning plastic.

I walked back in time for the 2 o'clock bus, and felt the 250 foot difference in altitude between the viewpoint and the higher bus stop.  I again enjoyed the hour plus ride back to Munnar, now under cloudy skies.  There were even more Indian tourists along the road in the afternoon than in the morning.  Back in Munnar I had a good lunch at a popular restaurant in town.  It was still crowded with customers when I arrived after 3.

Munnar was cloudy, too.  On my way back to my hotel I stopped at Christ Church, a small stone church on a little hill built in 1910.   It had some interesting plaques inside from the colonial era and still has the original fourteen rows of beautifully carved pews.  After looking around, I sat down in the first row and listened to the choir practicing.  There were less than ten of them, mostly women but a male director and a man playing the choir, plus one other man among the choir.  They were practicing hymns in English and the choir director gave me copies of the hymns they were practicing.  I enjoyed sitting there listening to that very western church music.  A sign outside the church listed the times of Sunday services in Tamil, Malayalam, and English.  On the hillside above the church is an extensive cemetery in bad condition under the trees.  Even the areas around the recent and relatively recent graves were unattractive, with weeds and litter.  Somewhere up there is the grave of a 24 year old woman who came to Munnar in 1894 and died of cholera soon after her marriage, but I couldn't find it.

The next morning, too, was sunny.  After breakfast, I walked to the town center and then beyond to the north a half mile or so, passing more tea covered hillsides, to the Tea Museum.  Passing through the town center I came across a member of the Congress Party campaigning.  He was dressed in the traditional Kerala (and Tamil Nadu) politician outfit, a long white dhoti (called a mundu in Kerala) and a white shirt.  He had a retinue of about twenty guys similarly clad who followed him around as he rushed in and out of shops greeting people and shaking the hands of those who extended their hands.  His sari clad wife followed him, doing the same.

The museum was very interesting and I ended up spending almost four hours there, although it isn't very large.  It was very crowded with Indian tourists at first, and a few foreigners.  The Indians there were not only from Kerala and nearby Tamil Nadu.  I recognized some Hindi being spoken and one guy told me he was from far away Gujarat.  A very interesting 30 minute film on the history of the area and the tea industry was shown over and over again and I watched it a couple of times.  In another room a television monitor showed silent footage from the 1930's, including the operation of the ropeway and the Maharaja of Travancore's visit in 1935.  The Maharaja's visit included a lunch and a visit to the race course.  The footage of both showed the Maharaja, a short guy in Indian dress and a very big turban among the British men in suits and ties and pith helmets.  The British women all wore hats, but not pith helmets.  It was all very interesting.  There seemed to be a lot of smoking at lunch, by both men and women.  The horse races looked pretty exciting.  The Maharaja gave out trophies afterwards.

The hills around Munnar were the abode of tribal peoples, the Muthuvans and others, before the arrival of the British.  They are still around, and I've seen a few.  The museum described them as a mixture of "proto-australoid (pre-dravidian) people and negritos (negroid pygmies)."   The first Europeans known to have passed through the hills were Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, and a small troop of soldiers in 1790.  They were heading to Travancore which was thought to be under attack by Tipu Sultan of Mysore.  A British general learned that Tipu had turned back, ordered Wellesley to return, which he did in a round about way, exploring the area.  Two other British army officers explored the area in 1817 and the first Britons interested in cultivating the area arrived in the 1870's.  Cinchona (a tree with bark containing quinine) and sisal were the first crops, with tea introduced in 1880.  It soon became the main crop of the area, with fifteen tea factories by 1915.  Access to the hills was at first from Tamil Nadu, with the road to Cochin not built until 1920, and then destroyed in the big flood of 1924, which did great damage to the area.  The Cochin road was not rebuilt until 1931.  A narrow gauge railroad ran from Munnar to Top Station from 1908 until it was wiped out in the 1924 flood.

A minor tea factory is part of the museum and you can watch green tea freshly plucked moving on rolling belt and cut up four different times before being oxidized in a long roller, which does roll, turning the green snippets of tea brown.  The tea is then heated at 104 degrees celsius.  One of the friendly guides took me into the room with a big wood burning furnace which heats water from a big tank to make the steam that heats the tea.  The rest of the machinery, the cutters and rollers and so forth, run by electricity.  It was all very interesting, and smelled wonderful.  I was given a cup of cardamom tea, with milk and sugar, while there.  After my almost four hours there, I walked back into the town center, had lunch, and then walked back to my hotel on a sunny afternoon.

It was sunny again the next morning and at 10 I took a bus heading to Marayoor, 25 miles northeast of Munnar.  This was a beautiful drive of almost an hour and a half.  From Munnar the bus rose up a narrowing green valley full of bright green hillsides covered with tea bushes.  We also passed women plucking tea and a couple of tea factories as we climbed more than a thousand feet in elevation to the pass.  The bus then came down the steep valley on the other side, heading down the eastern slope of the Ghats along the Pambar River towards Tamil Nadu.  To the north were high, rounded, rocky mountains.  The highest mountain in India south of the Himalayas, Anamudi at 8842 feet, was nearby, though I don't know if it was in view.  The bus made a wide turn along the tea covered hillsides of this valley as we headed down, with spectacular views of the tea covered hillsides, the rocky mountains beyond, and the valley far below.  As we continued to descend through more tea covered hillsides the scenery became even more enchanting.  Growing among the tea were not only tall green leafed trees, but dozens of trees without leaves but heavily covered with lilac colored blossoms, making one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen.  A little further down bright red poinsettias were planted along the narrow roadway bordering the tea bushes.  We also passed some more tea factories.  One was right along the road and you could smell the heating tea.

Marayoor is at about 3500 feet elevation.  I wanted to go to Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary (there is a national park closer to Munnar, but it is closed in February and March as those months are the breeding season for a rare wild goat that lives in the park), and the next bus heading in that direction wasn't until 1 p.m.  A sign in town said Chinnar was 3 kilometers, less than two miles, from town, so I decided to walk it.  Heading downhill out of town the terrain became much drier and browner.  I soon realized that the three kilometers would take me only to the border of the sanctuary, not the headquarters, so I stopped at a roadside stand and sat in the shade talking to the friendly woman who ran it and waiting for the bus.  It was a nice place to wait.  I boarded the bus when it came by and had to stand, but stood near the door so I could get a view of the now incredibly dry valley we were descending.  The contrast with the bright green tea filled valley above could not be more stark.  The trees were mostly leafless and the grass brown.  The river ran at the bottom of the valley and I could see a few waterfalls at one spot.  Despite the dryness, the valley, with towering rocky mountains above, was scenic.  At one stop a tribal man and woman got off the bus.  The air was hot and dry.

After about 40 minutes the bus reached the sanctuary headquarters, at about 1600-1700 feet altitude and a little less than ten miles from Marayoor.  This area is considered a "dry forest" and a sign said rainfall was 250-500 millimeters, about 10 to 20 inches, per year, quite a contrast to the 7000 millimeters, or about 275 inches, of rain per year just a few miles to the west, on the western side of the mountains.  For 250 rupees (about $4) a person, you can get a three hour guided trek through a portion of the sanctuary, and a German couple and I decided to do the trek, though we had to be back for the return bus at 4:15.

The middle of the afternoon is not the best time to see animals, and it was very hot, but I enjoyed the trek. We first walked east through the shade of trees lining the Chinnar River, and the shade and just the sound of the rushing water helped with the heat.  We saw monkeys, macaques and langurs, and our guide spotted a snake, which I heard but did not see.  For a while we watched a black and white bird, maybe 8 to 10 inches tall, but with a long white plume of a tail that was at least twice as long as his body.  Near the confluence of the Chinnar and the Pambar (the rivers are the border with Tamil Nadu) about 15 water buffalo were relaxing in or near the water.  One was fully submerged except for his head and a small portion of his back. At the confluence we headed southwest along the rocky bank of the Pambar a short distance before turning north back to the headquarters through very dry terrain, with good views of the rocky mountains rising over the very dry forest.  Cactus was growing, some with bright yellow flowers.  We saw quite a bit of elephant dung, but no elephants.  We did see several sambar deer together, including a male with antlers.

At the finish of the trek I bought and quickly drank a liter of water, and then bought another one for the bus ride back to Munnar.  I had to stand on the bus until we got to Marayoor, a 40 minute trip.  At first I had poor views in the crowded bus, but then made my way to a door where I could see better, and enjoyed the trip up that steep, stark, dry valley.  We had a long stop at Marayoor and then left sometime after 5.  The sky was cloudless, but everything now was in shadow due to the high mountains.  I again enjoyed the spectacular scenery, the tea covered hills, the poinsettias, and the trees with lilac colored blossoms, with the steep rocky mountains above.  As the bus rose toward the 6000 plus foot pass, the views were spectacular but the air was getting cold.  The bus, like most buses in Kerala, did not have glass windows on the sides, just shades that could be pulled down but completely block the view.  Some people pulled their shades down, but quite a few, including me, did not.  It made for a cold ride as we headed down the valley on the other to Munnar just before dark.  The warm smell of tea at the factories we passed was now even more of a pleasure.  We reached Munnar just at 7, at dark.  I was cold.  Thinking I would be back well before dark, I hadn't brought my jacket with me.

I had planned to leave Munnar the next day, but decided to spend another day in the area.  At 10 I took the bus I had taken the day before as far as the village of Vagavurrai, which I remembered as just above the area with the lilac colored blossoming trees.  It took about an hour to get there, only about 14 miles from Munnar, on a morning without a cloud in the sky.  I again enjoyed the glorious scenery on the way.  There is a big, pleasant smelling tea factory right along the road in Vagavurrai.

I spent 20 minutes or so looking around the village.  A few old men, retired tea workers, I imagine, gave me curious looks but were friendly. A small temple had a tree with those lilac colored blossoms right above it.  I started walking down the narrow and not very trafficked road, passing tea bushes on either side. Soon I reached the area where the trees with lilac colored blossoms were prevalent.  The area was spectacular. Besides those trees, I noticed some big trees on the other side of the road with yellowing leaves, some often falling to the ground.  The tea covered hillsides, too, seemed particularly lovely, and steep rocky mountains loomed over the valley.  I walked slowly and enjoyed the scenery.

After an hour or so, and maybe only a mile or so, I reached a waterfall on a stream flowing from high above down to the Pandar River.  Unfortunately, a bus load of perhaps high school kids were there, frolicking in the water and, as Indians do, screaming in unison quite often.  Such an odd thing  to do.  The falls weren't much now in the dry season and I didn't spend much time there.  I did have a sort of lunch of potato chips and four quail eggs bought from a stand.

I walked back the way I had come only a few hundred feet to a spot where I could sit on a little grassy knoll under the shade of a big tree with a good view of the tea covered hillside nearby, with poinsettias along the road and among the tea bushes several trees with lilac colored blossoms.  I ended up spending more than an hour sitting there enjoying the views.  Not much  traffic came by.  It was cool in the shade of the tree, and there was an occasional breeze.  Two buses to Munnar came by, but I didn't want to leave yet.  Eventually, I started walking back to Vagavurrai, only about a 300 foot climb in elevation from the falls and maybe a 200 foot climb from where I had been sitting.  I enjoyed the great scenery again.  As I reached a spot within sight of the village, another bus to Munnar came by and I hopped on.  I got a seat near the back and enjoyed the beautiful trip back, arriving before 4.  I had a late lunch in town and then walked back to my hotel.  Still, there was not a cloud in the sky.

March 13-18, 2014: Cochin (Kochi)

I took the bus to Cochin, now officially known as Kochi, from Thrissur on the morning of the 13th.  My bus left about 10 for the 50 mile, two and a half hour trip through heavy traffic.  Cochin has about 1.4 million people and now combines the former distinct cities of Cochin at the tip of an approximately 30 mile long peninsula running north along the coast and Ernakulam, east across the large Vembanad Lake from Cochin. Geographically, it is a little like San Francisco, with Cochin as San Francisco and Ernakulam as Oakland, or rather as the whole littoral of Contra Costa and Alameda counties.  There even is an artificial island in the lake, Willingdon Island, much larger than San Francisco Bay's Treasure Island.

The bus station is in Ernakulam.  I took an auto rickshaw to the main jetty and from there one of the frequent ferries across the lake to Cochin, or Fort Cochin as it is called.  The little wooden ferry headed west across the lake, which I think perhaps must in fact be an estuary, as it has a not quite Golden Gate outlet to the Arabian Sea between Fort Cochin and Vypeen Island just to the north of Fort Cochin.  Cochin's port was dredged and modernized in the 1930's, creating a large island, Willingdon Island, named after a Viceroy, I think.  The port facilities are now quite extensive.  We passed several huge cranes and several large ships coming or going.  The ferry took only about 15 minutes, skirting the northern end of Willingdon Island, to reach the jetty on the northeast shore of Fort Cochin.  From there I had about a 15 minute walk, passing lots of old colonial buildings, to the center of the old town of Cochin, where I checked into a small hotel.  I had passed a restaurant advertising spinach cheese quiche and banana cream pie ( a sure sign that a place attracts lots of western tourists) on the way, so after checking in I headed there and had spinach quiche and banana cream pie.  Neither was all that good, but a welcome change from Indian food.

Cochin first gained prominence after a great flood in 1341 created an outlet to the sea from Vembanad Lake just north of Cochin, which also led to the silting up of the previous outlet about 30 miles north, which had been the site of Muziris, the great port on India's Malabar coast since Roman times and before.  In 1405 the royal family moved south to Cochin, which was already a major port trading with Arabs, Chinese, and others.  The Portuguese arrived in 1500 under Cabral, who had discovered Brazil on the way.  Da Gama had first arrived further north two years earlier, near Calicut, but hadn't gotten along with the ruler of Calicut, the Zamorin.  The Raja of Cochin and the Zamorin of Calicut were rivals, and the Raja of Calicut welcomed the Portuguese and gave them leave to build a fort at Cochin, which they did.  They soon controlled the coast, and did so until supplanted by the Dutch in 1663.  The British in turn supplanted the Dutch in 1795.

After my late lunch I walked around the old town, first to the big fishing nets along the north shore, facing the busy outlet to the sea.  Cochin is famous for these big fishing nets, made of teak timbers, though many now have replaced some of the teak beams with much less appealing metal ones.  About ten nets stand along the sandy shore, with the nets themselves having a diameter of perhaps 60 feet, hung from the teak timbers lashed together that must stand 30 or 40 feet high.  The big contraptions are operated by four to six men, who pull ropes to start lifting the net out of the sea, aided by huge rocks, one or two feet in diameter, suspended by ropes.  It is quite an ingenious and interesting operation.  About ten other nets stand across the water, on the southern shore of Vypeen Island. I've read these nets are costly to maintain, and are dying out. The last ones are the 20 or so in Cochin and across the way on Vypeen Island.  The idea came from China, apparently from Chinese traders some time between 1350 and 1450.   I've also read that they were reintroduced by the Portuguese who learned about them in Macau, after Arabs had driven out the Chinese (and apparently their nets) before the Portuguese arrived.  It is fascinating to watch the nets being operated. They weren't scooping up much fish that afternoon, though.  Only two or three were in operation.

I spent a couple of hours walking around the old town, with many old colonial buildings.  I've read that local laws prohibit the building of new buildings in an effort to preserve the colonial character of Fort Cochin.  I passed lots of these old buildings, some in good shape and others not, plus a couple of churches, a Dutch cemetery, remnants of the old fort walls, and a former parade ground filled in the late afternoon with cricket and soccer players.  I watched the sunset from the very dirty beach near the westernmost of the giant fishing nets.

The next morning before a late breakfast I spent about three hours looking around the old city.  I started again at the fishing nets and the very busy morning outdoor fish market alongside.  Fish were brought in by fishermen coming ashore in hand paddled canoes and then plopped or dumped by the bucket full onto dirty sacks lying on the ground.  A guy then quickly auctioned off each lot, taking a fish or two from each pile as his share.  It was all very interesting to watch.  I noticed cats also found it interesting to watch.  They were very well behaved, that is, restrained.   I walked through the streets again, too, stopping to enter some of the big old houses now serving as hotels.  Huge trees, full of green leaves but their limbs covered with dead epiphytes now in the dry season, are all over town.  The parade ground was again filled with cricket and soccer players.  Next to the parade ground is St. Francis Church, originally built by the Portuguese in 1503 as a Catholic church, though rebuilt in the mid 1500's.  It became a Dutch Reformed church after the Dutch takeover in 1663, was renovated again in the 18th century, and became an Anglican church after the British takeover.  It now belongs to the Church of South India.  Inside, now lining the walls after renovation, are old Portuguese and Dutch tombstones. On the floor is the former tombstone of Vasco da Gama, who was buried here after his death in 1524.  His body was returned to Portugal in 1538, where it now reposes in an elaborate tomb.

I ate breakfast where I had eaten lunch the day before, a very nice and comfortable place where I had a delicious cheese and tomato omelet accompanied by thick brown bread with butter and masala tea.  In fact, I ate breakfast there every morning I was in Cochin, and almost invariably had the same breakfast, which I would eat while reading one of the newspapers provided for customers.

After breakfast I walked to the Indo-Portuguese Museum near the Bishop's Palace, with an only mildly interesting collection of church antiquities.  It was hot and humid and I spent the early part of the afternoon in an internet cafe.

At 4 I went to see a martial arts demonstration.  Kalarippayat is an ancient Keralan martial art, dating back to the 12th century.  Two remarkable fit young men demonstrated it on a stage for about an hour and it was very interesting.  It was much like gymnastics, with jumps and flips.  They demonstrated holds and attacks, and then fought each other with hands, then sticks, then knives, then swords, and finally with one guy wielding a metal double whip.  Sparks flew as they leaped at each other in mid air, their swords clashing.  It was all very impressive and in fact a little scary at times.

Afterwards I watched a Kathakali performance on the same stage.  Kathakali originated in the 17th century and is a Keralan dramatic art form, with the actors, accompanied by a singer and drummers, not reciting lines but communicating with gestures, eye movements, and mudras (hand gestures).  The performance started at 6:30, but we got to watch the three actors put on their elaborate make-up starting at 5.  They came out soon after 5 and I had a front row seat.  They sat holding little mirrors, with little paint pots in front of them, and used their fingers and tiny brushes to apply bright green, red, yellow, white and black make-up in gaudy designs all over their faces. It was very interesting to watch.  The hero, once he had done his preliminary make-up, laid on his back while a make-up expert worked on him for maybe an hour, applying more make-up and gluing to his chin and cheeks strips of white paper that he had first cut with scissors.  This beard like white paper, I was later told, dates from the days before electrical lighting and helped to illuminate the face of the hero by reflection of the surrounding oil lamps.

Kathakali performances typically occur at temple festivities and last all night, from six to nine hours.  We saw only an excerpt of about an hour to an hour and a half.  The actors wear not only gaudy make-up but extremely elaborate costumes, with hooped skirts, lots of jewelry, and elaborate headdresses.  Also, they rub a certain kind of seed and then put it into their eyes just before the performance starts, keeping it there till the end.  This makes their eyes red, that is, bloodshot.  Before the play excerpt started, one of the actors came out, sat down, and to excellent descriptive commentary, demonstrated amazing eye movements, to the timing of the beating of drums, a two side drum beaten by fingers and a one sided drum beaten by drumsticks. He also demonstrated the 24 mudras and acted out the nine basic emotions (love, anger, fear, wonder, repulsion, bravery, disdain, sorrow, and quiet).  He also demonstrated certain commands and requests, all very interesting.  At first I found his wonderful eyebrow movements reminiscent at first of Sam Ervin, and later John Belushi.  In fact, he looked a little like John Belushi.

The performance was of an episode from the Mahabharata in which Arjuna, one of the hero Pandava brothers, and Shiva, disguised as a huntsman, both shoot the same deer or boar (I forget which) and then dispute over it.  A balding buy played Parvati, Shiva's consort, his baldness, which I had noticed when he was applying his make up, now hidden by his elaborate costume.  All Kathakali actors are men.  Seated only about 20 or 30 feet from the actors, I found the performance enthralling, with the grand gestures, the dancing, the frenzied drumming, and wonderful singing by the guy who ran the performance, wearing a long white dhoti and standing in the corner signing and ring small cymbals.  The actors do occasionally make some whoops and groans and the like, but have no speaking lines.  Afterwards I spoke quite a while with the guy who runs the shows, and he was very interesting, explaining a lot more about Kathakali.

The next morning I walked around for about an hour before breakfast, watching the activity at the fishing nets and market and visiting a few more of the colonial mansions turned into hotels, one the former home of a Jewish merchant named Samuel Koder, with a photo of him showing Queen Elizabeth II a torah.  After breakfast I walked to the ferry jetty and took the ferry to Ernakulam, where I got a bus to a folklore museum in the southern part of the city.  This museum was built by a private collector out of something like 30 old houses.  It is three stories high and filled with fascinating artifacts, including carvings, paintings, musical instruments, carved wooden pillars, windows, and doors, Kathakali and Theyyam masks and costumes, old photographs, and much else.  On the top floor is a beautiful 17th century wooden theater hall, with murals on the walls and an elaborate ceiling.  Also extensively displayed were several photos from a visit by Prince Charles.

I spent a couple of hours looking around inside and then made my way to the Maharaja of Cochin's Hill Palace, now a museum, in Tripunithura, ten miles southeast of Ernakulam.  This turned out to be a somewhat difficult trip, taking more than an hour and a half.  It is not particularly hilly around this palace, though the palace is on a low rise.  The palace is much larger than the one in Thrissur, but run down.  Inside was the former cabinet room, some wonderful old carriages and palanquins, portraits, weapons, and a strange metal person shaped cage in which prisoners are said to have been executed, by being pecked to death by birds while inside.  I spent about two hours looking around inside and then walked through the gardens before starting back to Cochin about 4:30.

Through a series of mishaps, it took me two hours to get back to Cochin, and I arrived at the theater for the Kathakali just after the initial demonstration of eye movements and so forth had begun, with a different guy doing the demonstration this time.  I again had a front row seat and enjoyed it all. The excerpt that evening dealt with the story of Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata, killing a demon named Baka who had been terrorizing a village of brahmins.  Afterwards, from 8 to 9, I watched the weekly dance performance at the theatre, with examples of the dances of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and the bharatanatyam of Tamil Nadu, which I had seen at the dance festival in Mamallapuram in January.  The dancers, though students, were very good.

The next morning before breakfast I peaked into the Sunday morning church service at St. Francis' Church and then wandered around watching all the activity at the fishing nets and market.  After breakfast and reading the newspaper, I started walking to Mattancherry, a neighborhood about a mile and a half away.  I followed the streets heading east towards the ferry jetty, where I turned south on a street paralleling the lake, passing lots of old buildings, many of the shops in them closed and just about all of them in a pretty dilapidated condition.  Arriving in Mattancherry, I passed the Mattancherry Palace, former residence of the Rajas of Cochin and reached what is called Jewtown just south of the palace.  Kerala had a substantial community of Jews, perhaps dating from as early as the 6th century B.C., or at least from the 1st century A.D.  Apparently, those descended from the earliest arrivals were known as the Black Jews, while those descending from more recent arrivals were known as the White Jews.  In any event, they arrived in Cochin and built a synagogue near the Raja's palace in 1568.  Unfortunately, it was closed the morning I arrived due to a Jewish holiday.  The little streets near the synagogue comprise Jewtown (main street:  Jew Street) and the old shops are now filled with antique and spice shops, plus a few restaurants and a hotel, all catering to tourists. The Jews virtually all left for Israel soon after its creation.

I walked back to the Mattancherry Palace, also called the Dutch Palace.  It was built by the Portuguese in 1557 to help cement their trading relations with the Raja, but renovated in 1663 when the Dutch took over. It is a two story square building, with a courtyard in the center that houses a Hindu temple, closed that day. The building doesn't look that impressive from the outside, but inside it is very interesting.  I spent three hours inside.  It was crowded at first, with lots of Indian tourists on a Sunday morning, but thinned out later.  The palace contains very interesting and extensive descriptions of the history and culture of Cochin, so I spent a lot of time reading.  It also contained some very interesting photographs and objects such as clothes and palanquins.  One room had large portraits of the rajas from the royal family's last century of rule, up to independence, with descriptions of their reigns.  The highlight of the palace are its murals, dating from the perhaps the 16th century, though I've also read from the 18th century.  One room's walls are covered with scenes from the Ramayana, and little signs give a very good description of what is depicted.  Another room had other very interesting murals of Vishnu and other gods, again with very good descriptions.  Downstairs, I have read, is a room with very erotic murals, but they aren't open to the public.

I made the very hot mid afternoon walk back to Fort Cochin and had a late lunch about 3, reading a news magazine during and after lunch.  Just before 5 I again visited St. Francis Church and stopped in the modern Catholic church on my way to another Kathakali performance, getting there at 5 to watch the make-up being put on.  These Kathakali performances cost 300 rupees, about $5, so a very good deal.  This evening's performance portrayed an excerpt from the killing of Kichaka, a general who tries to seduce Malini, the wife of all five of the Pandava brothers.  When she resists, he beats her.  She tells Bhima, who hides in wait for Kichaka and kills him.  I again had a  front row seat.  Afterwards, from 8 to 9, I watched at the same theater a performance of sittar and tabla, which was just excellent, in fact mesmerizing.  The sittar player had long, graying hair and a long, thin face, looking a little like Rabindranath Tagore.  The tabla player was a young guy with glasses.  They improvised on three different ragas and seemed to very much enjoy playing with each other.  The sittar had 20 strings.  Apparently, they come in 19, 20, and 21 string varieties.

The next morning I again went to see the activity at the fishing nets and market before breakfast.  There seemed to be a lot more variety of fish and other seafood being sold that morning, including baby sharks, lobsters, tuna, and mussels with a green border on their shells, besides the variety of fish and crabs, big and small, usually on display for sale.

After breakfast I again walked to Mattancherry and Jewtown to see the synagogue.  Originally built in 1568, it was rebuilt after the Dutch takeover, and later, in 1760, a clock tower was added next to it. The floor is covered with beautiful hand painted blue and white Chinese tiles of four different scenes.  It is interesting to look at them closely to see just the small differences in tiles depicting the same scene.  The tabernacle housing the Torah was closed and covered with a cloth.  Oil lamps and chandeliers, the latter from Belgium, hung from the ceiling.  Afterwards, I walked to the cemetery (on Jew Cemetery Lane) and then spent quite a bit of time in the interesting spice and antique shops.  Some of the antique shops seem more like museums, with some really wonderful stuff, including a boat maybe 50 feet long with parasols and paddles.  I stopped in at the Mattancherry Palace again (admission costs only five rupees) to look at the murals once again.  I headed back at 2, another hot mid afternoon walk, and then had another late lunch before getting a haircut for all of 70 rupees, a little over a dollar.  At 5 I again went to the Kathakali performance and again saw the Killing of Baka.  I was a little disappointed to see a repeat, but I enjoyed it.  The cast was different.

As usual, the next morning I spent time watching all the activity at the fishing nets and market before breakfast.  After breakfast, I spent the two hours before noon again walking around.  The area around the fishing nets was now crowded with elderly foreign tourists.  I walked past the nets and then along the shore on the west side of town and watched the few fishermen in canoes out on the Arabian Sea.  I also watched several big cargo ships come in from the sea and head into port.  A couple of Indian Navy ships left port and headed out to sea.  I sat for a while in the shade watching the sea.  My thermometer indicated 90 degrees in the shade, but there was a breeze.  Still, it was hot.  Temperatures in Cochin during the day usually were about 95 to 97 degrees, according to the newspapers, and about 75 degrees at night, though my thermometer usually indicated 84 or 86 in my room at night.  High humidity, too.  March to May are Kerala's hottest months, before the monsoon hits in June.

I spent the early afternoon in an internet cafe and then had lunch.  After lunch I took another walk around town, walking east along the north shore to a big hotel with very interesting old maps and old photographs. One of the old photographs showed a city street, perhaps from a century ago, with the people all in traditional clothes..The first thing I noticed was the absence of litter.  At 5 I again headed to the Kathakali performance, having to content myself with a second row seat for the first time.  The excerpt that evening was from the story of Nakrathundi, a demoness who changes herself into a beautiful girl in an attempt to seduce a warrior son of the god Indra.  She fails, turns back into her demoness form, and is attacked by Indra's son, who cuts off her nose, ears, and breasts.  The guy playing the demoness Nakrathundi did have large red wooden breasts as part of his costume.

I spent a last hot night in Cochin before heading inland into the cool hills.  I was tempted to stay a day longer, but wanted to get into the hills before the weekend, when they are inundated by Indians seeking to escape the heat of the lowlands.  And I wanted to escape the heat of the lowlands, too.

March 10-12, 2014: Thrissur and the Elephant Race at Guruvayur

I left Calicut before 10 on the morning of the 10th on a bus headed inland southeast to Palakkad, 80 miles away. The trip, though low but somewhat hilly terrain (though never rising more than maybe 400 feet in elevation, and then only near the end of the trip), was not as scenic as I had hoped.  The route was congested and slow, the bus taking four hours to reach Palakkad.  The terrain became drier as we headed east, towards the gap in the Western Ghats.  I did see high hills in the distance at times.  

Palakkad was hot.  I decided not to stay and see the fort outside town.  After a good chicken biryani lunch I caught a bus heading to Thrissur, 40 miles southwest, a journey of less than two hours.  This trip, too, was not particularly scenic.  I did see rice fields along the way.  Thrissur, too, was hot, though it is a lot closer to the coast than Palakkad.  I checked into a hotel overlooking the city's central temple.  The temple, on a low mound, is at the very center of the city (of about 350,000 people).  Non-Hindus are not allowed inside. About 6:30 I walked around it, passing lots of men sitting in the relative cool of the early evening, just before dark.  On the north side of the temple I passed two bull temple elephants being tied to trees for the night by their mahouts.  They had brought their own evening meals with them, long branches of some sort of vegetation. Each of their mahouts tied the chain on one of their back feet to a nearby tree.  Another chain on a front foot was tied to a rope attached to a tree further away, to keep them more or less in place during the night.  I watched them eat until it was dark and then spent a very warm night in my hotel room.

The next morning was hot, but with a strong wind blowing.  I walked around the outside of the temple and past some colonial era buildings to the former palace of the Rajas of Cochin.  (I've read they had something like 40 palaces.  The Viceroy elevated them to Maharajas in 1921.)  This palace is about 200 years old and is now a museum.  It’s not a large palace, but the architecture is interesting, with verandas.  Inside the collection included weapons, coins (including quite a few well displayed Roman coins dating from the trade links with Rome 2000 years ago), a carriage, and a bed in a small bedchamber.  Off to one side are gardens and a tank of water.  I spent the hot afternoon mostly in an internet cafe and about 5 walked to a nearby big white Catholic Church, with a central spire 260 feet high.  A crowded church service began at 5:30.  I walked around the central temple again, finding a spot to watch a big, chained male temple elephant feeding. As he was breaking up large pieces of vegetation with his trunk and, when necessary, one of his front feet, he would at times tuck a few pieces between his tusk and trunk until he had a big enough pile to put in his mouth. I spent another hot night in my hotel room, with the temperature inside the room 86 degrees, with my window wide open.

I spent the next morning reading in my room except for a late breakfast, and then about 1 p.m. took a bus about 15 miles northwest to the temple town of Guruvayur, an hour trip, passing lots of big, new houses on the way.  Guruvayur is the site of the Sri Krishna Temple, one of India's richest.  I had come to see the elephant race, scheduled to start at 3, that leads off a ten day temple festival.  In fact, that was the reason I didn't leave Thrissur after only one night there.  I walked to the race course, along a street leading to the temple's eastern entrance.  I asked a local man how long the race course was and he told me a furlong, which is an eighth of a mile.  I walked down to the area near the starting line, where ten or so elephants had gathered with their bare chested mahouts.  One guy had told me, and I had read, that the race would be with ten elephants, but someone else said 29.  As I milled around the starting line with other folks, other elephants began to arrive, and the area became quite crowded with elephants, all males, I think.  It is a little intimidating to be standing among so many elephants, some moving.  You get the feeling that one could sneeze and accidentally crush you.  Indian authorities are not so concerned with public safety as in other countries.  Still, it was fascinating to see so many elephants up close.

About 2:30 I decided I had better find a spot along the race course, though I now wish I had just hung around the starting line.  I found a spot in the shade of trees, but it was still hot in the packed, pushing crowd. I was on a sidewalk, a typical uneven Indian sidewalk, with a newly erected temporary barrier of bamboo rails and a rope to separate the crowd from the elephants.  Drawing upon my knowledge of physics and engineering, I quickly calculated that this barrier would little deter a determined bull elephant, and planned my escape route, as if I would have a chance  to escape.  Eventually, from my spot I could look down the street and see five elephants now lined up side by side at the starting line, with the biggest in the middle.  A couple of white police cars were in front of them.  One left, and then the other quickly pulled out into a side street, and the race began.  

Actually, it was kind of anticlimactic, and I wonder if the fix was in.  Only the first two or three elephants, led by the biggest one that had been in the middle of the starting line, came past with any speed, and then only trotting.  Bare chested men in white dhotis ran alongside them.  The other elephants, and there were at least 20 of them, came along at a walking pace.  It was over in about five, maybe ten, minutes.  

The crowd followed the last of the elephants through the street towards the temple entrance, and so did I.  It took a while to get there in that big crowd.  After all, it was almost a furlong away.  The temple itself, at least outside, looks modern, with metal structures providing shade all around it.  The winning elephant was inside the temple and for his efforts won the right to lead the temple processions during the ten day festival.  At the opening in the walled temple compound, bare chested guys in dhotis stood guard, with silver plated posts behind them, and behind the posts a wall with interesting and colorful murals, including Krishna playing his flute.  I walked around, watching all the people.  One elephant was still around, but heading away from the temple to the north.  The others had already left.  Stages were set up around the temple for performances during the upcoming festival.  

I left on a bus back to Thrissur about 4:30 and at an intersection in a little town along the way we passed a big tusked elephant all decorated, including a big silver plate over his forehead, standing with a big group of bare chested, white dhoti wearing men.  Back in Thrissur I again walked to the north side of the central temple and watched a big bull elephant being tied up for the night.  I watched him for about half an hour as he ripped up and ate the long branches of vegetation he had brought with him for his evening meal.

March 6-9, 2014: Kannur and Calicut

I finally left the cool hills of Wayanad on the morning of the 6th, taking a bus west from Mananthavady to Kannur on the Malabar coast.  I left about 9:30 on a sunny morning on the 40 mile trip, which took more than two and a half hours.  The first hour or so the bus traveled through green hills covered with coffee, tea, betel nut, and much other vegetation, at an altitude of about 2500 to 3000 feet, according to my altimeter, which must have been registering too high, as it showed about 500 feet when we reached Kannur on the coast.  After that hour or so we began a sharp descent through beautiful forest, making four hairpin turns (again numbered) and descending 600 feet.  We had great views over the thick jungle to the lower hills below.  Lots of ferns were growing along the roadside.  After that descent the terrain was still hilly, with lots more coconut palms.  And it was hotter.  Groves of rubber trees began to appear.  All was still very green.

Kannur (formerly Cannanore) has about 500,000 people and is heavily Muslim, but with lots of Hindus and Christians, too.  I found a hotel in the old section of town and had a good chicken biryani lunch before spending the rest of the afternoon in my hotel room reading the newspaper and a news magazine.  According to the newspapers I've seen, the highs along the coast have been about 95 to 97 degrees, with the lows about 75.  The Indian general elections have been set for April 7 to May 12, in nine stages, with results to be announced on May 16, so the news has been particularly interesting.  There are lots of billboards, too, here in Kerala, many featuring Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP, favored to come first in the elections, or Rahul Gandhi, standard bearer of the incumbent Congress Party.

A little after 6 I took an auto rickshaw to a temple in the Thane section of Kannur to see a theyyam. Theyyams are spirit possession ceremonies held along the coast in northern Kerala this time of year.  There are said to be about 400 different kinds of these ceremonies, with one going on somewhere almost every night.  The receptionist at my hotel told me how to get to it and when it started.  They last all night.  Theyyam is always performed by members of the lowest castes.  Over the course of the night, through dance and ritual, the man, dressed in elaborate costumes, with his face painted, is taken over by a spirit and becomes the spirit.

As I was arriving, I passed on the street a group of guys, including musicians, in dhotis (or mundus, as they are called in Malayalam, the language of Kerala).  They waved at me and apparently included the guy to be possessed that night.  Unfortunately, they were headed elsewhere, and nothing got going at the temple until after 9.  The temple itself was a low Kerala style temple, with two roofed shrines in the middle of an excavated area with a dirt patio all around and other shrines a little higher, above the excavated area. Preparations were being made for the night's activities, and people came and went. After looking around, I found a chair to sit in and read my news magazine while talking to folks now and then.

When the guys came back shortly after 9, they led one guy, with a red bundle on his head covering a pot of toddy (I was told), around the temple precincts for about fifteen minutes.  They were accompanied by two drummers and a horn player and stopped here and there at altars to do obeisance, with some of the toddy pouring out of the pot as the guy with the pot on his head bowed.  He was the person to be possessed.  At the end they all ran around the compound a time or two.  Then they went into one of the roofed shrines and erected a colorful cloth to hide whatever they were doing within.  I could hear the sound of small cymbals behind the screen.  Other preparations were going on and the crowd had increased.  I saw only one other foreigner.  I was getting tired, and a little bored after four hours with not much happening.  About an hour after they went into the shrine, I decided to leave and took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel.  I had a little something to eat at a restaurant, took a welcome cold water bucket bath, and went to bed about 11:30.

I set my alarm for 5:15 the next morning to return to see the dawn climax of the theyyam, but just couldn't make myself get up.  I did get up about two hours later.  About an hour later I came down to the lobby and the receptionist advised heading to the theyyam site as it might still be going on.  I did so about 8:30.  The dancing was all over, but two spirit possessed men in elaborate costumes were still there receiving and giving blessings to lines of devotees, usually men lined up on one side and women on the other.  One man was standing in front of one of the two central shrines.  He wore a grass skirt, with the grass attached to a hoop around his waist. His face was painted bright red and he wore an elaborate curved headdress of cloth that must have been four feet high.  Sitting in front of one of the shrines above was another man, dressed in a sort of squarish, boxy costume, with his bare chest painted with dashes and spots, and wearing a strange mask, red and white, with big flaps on the cheeks.

I spent a couple of hours watching them receive the devotees, one after another.  The guy with the red painted face looked fairly fierce.  The mask on the other one looked fierce, too, but the spirit possessed guy seemed fairly jovial, often uttering a fairly jolly "heh-heh-heh" that almost, but not quite, approached Santa Claus' "ho-ho-ho."  I noticed he took a swig of toddy, administered by his helpers, now and then.  Those lining up to meet him often whispered in his ear, behind the big cheek flap on his mask.  Both guys dabbed yellow powder on the tops of devotees' heads after talking with them.  Few spectators were left, but the lines to speak with the spirit possessed guys never got too short.  It was getting hot in the sun as I wandered around, noticing a pile of ashes in one corner of the compound.  A guy told me that the morning before a spirit possessed man at the end of his theyyam had hurled himself into a pile of hot ashes 80 times.  He said the same guy had done it 115 times a few years ago, being given a gold bracelet in commemoration.  I guess he's getting soft.  He advised me to come back the next morning for the conclusion of this temple's schedule of theyyams.

I came back to my hotel about 10:30 or 11, had breakfast, and spent the middle of the day in my room reading.  About 3 I took an auto rickshaw to St. Angelo Fort on the coast, only a bit more than a mile away. This more or less triangular shaped fort, made of blocks of laterite stone, was constructed by the Portuguese between 1505 and 1507 on a promontory between the harbor and the Arabian Sea.   The Dutch took it over in 1663, selling it to a local raja in 1772.  The British captured it in 1790.  It was fairly interesting, with a dry moat on the landward side, gardens inside, a few cannon (some marked "GR"), and views out to sea.  I wandered around and talked to the guard for a while.  When it closed at 6 I walked back to my hotel.

I was up at 5:15 the next morning and took an auto rickshaw in the dark to the temple with the theyyam.  A big crowd had gathered.  A man in a grass skirt, with a mask on his head, was being led around the compound by bare chested, dhoti wearing helpers.  I found a good spot up above the central area and watched.  Eventually, he stopped in front of the two central shrines while his helpers attached a twenty foot high, and maybe one foot wide, bamboo and palm leaf decorated staff onto him.  Before being attached, little oil soaked wicks along the sides had been lit.  Then five or so long poles were attached to the hoop around his waist.  Each long pole had a bundle of straw covered with white cloth at each end, so that when they were all attached, he had ten or twelve bundles of cloth covered straw at the end of poles all around his body.  These, too, were soaked in oil and set on fire.  The overhead lights that had been illuminating the compound were turned off.

As the fires burned and  to the accompaniment of seven drummers and one horn player, he was led around the two central shrines two or three times, his helpers continually pouring oil from little vessels onto the burning straw ends of the poles to keep them burning.  At one point he mounted a small table in front of the two shrines.  Finally, back on the ground, he began to twirl, faster and faster, making a swirl of fire.  The lighted straw at the ends of the poles began to come loose and fall off, creating piles of smoking and sometimes fiery ashes on the ground that the helpers quickly dragged away with poles.  After the fires went out, his helpers divested him of the poles and the twenty foot high staff, whose wicks had also burned out. He then was again led around the two central shrines by his helpers.  Back in front of the shrines, he began to dance, at first slowly and then frenetically.  The crowd gathered closer.  Finally, his helpers guided him to a small table or seat in front of the shrines and he sat down.  The devotees gathered all around him and then formed lines for the opportunity to speak to him and receive his blessing.  It was all over a little before 7, and the sky was now light.  Most of the crowd left as soon as it was over, but I stayed until about 8:30 to watch the spirit possessed man speak to his devotees.

After breakfast and reading the newspaper, and buying some cashews and dates from a shop (lots of shops here are named "Dubai" this and "Gulf" that because so many Keralans have worked in the Persian Gulf area), I walked to the train station before 11 in time for the 11:20 train south along the coast to Calicut.  The train was more than an hour and a half late.  Despite having an unreserved general ticket, I got a window seat.  We left at 1 p.m., taking an hour and a half to reach Calicut, 55 miles away.  The carriage was full, but I enjoyed the very green scenery as we paralleled the coast.  Greenery was everywhere, and there was a lot of water, rivers and streams and canals and ponds.  And thousands of palm trees.  Bananas, too.  And I spotted mangroves along the edge of one of the bodies of water, so the water had to be a mixture of salt and fresh water.  We passed through the towns of Thalassery (formerly Tellicherry), one of Britain's first settlements, and Mahe, a former French outpost and now politically part of Pondicherry.  I spotted some colonial era buildings among the trees.  About ten miles before reaching Calicut we passed near where Vasco da Gama first reached India in 1498.

Calicut, another heavily Muslim area, has about 900,000 people and is now officially named Kozhikode, though I saw "Calicut" on most signs.  After getting a hotel, I had an omelet and coffee at the Indian Coffee House down the street and then walked around town.  In a park near the town center is a tank of water, all that remains of the palace grounds of the Zamorin, the local ruler who long fought against the Portuguese. Nearby is a large white church, founded by a Swiss missionary named Fritz in 1842 and now belonging to the Church of South India.  From there I walked towards the beach, passing spice shops, some in old buildings, on Court Street.  A promenade runs along the sandy and none too clean beach, and lots of folks were out and about at the end of the afternoon.  I paused to look around the Beach Hotel, housed in the old Malabar British Club.  I walked up and down the promenade and watched the sun disappear behind the clouds on the horizon about 6, half an hour or so before sunset.  I walked back to my hotel, reaching it just after dark.  My room was hot that night, 84 to 86 degrees inside the room.

The next morning was cloudy as I walked to the Indian Coffee House for breakfast.  Afterwards, I wandered through the alleyways of the fruit and vegetable market near my hotel, not very crowded early on a Sunday morning.  Off to one side were several streets of little shops or mini-warehouses chock full of bananas, mostly green ones.  The bananas were stuffed into the small rooms and hanging outside them. Porters were bringing more bananas in on little carts while others were taking them to and fro in big bunches on their shoulders.  I've never seen so many bananas.  It was fascinating to see all the activity and the people were all very friendly.  I wandered around for quite a while on a humid morning.  In the market it seemed all the sellers were men, and at first all the buyers were men.  Later, women started showing up.

About 10 I bordered a bus to make a day trip back up into the hills of Wayanad, mainly to see the scenery en route.  The two hour trip headed northeast to the town of Kalpetta, about 45 miles from Calicut.  The first part of the journey passed through hilly lowlands with lots of coconut palms, betel nut trees, banana trees, and much other greenery.  We also passed several groves of rubber trees.  There were lots of people en route, too, with many new houses apparently built with Gulf money.  Kerala is largely rural, but very crowded, with the densest population of any Indian state.

Eventually, we reached higher hills, with an impressively volcano shaped hill in the distance, and began a steep climb up nine hairpin turns, rising almost 2000 feet into the cool, green forest.  The sky was cloudy and the views hazy, but still good.  According to my altimeter, we reached about 2650 feet elevation before dropping slightly into Kalpetta.  I spent only a half hour in Kalpetta before catching a bus back to Calicut. There was some sun on the way back, but it was mostly cloudy once back in Calicut.

About 4:30 I took an auto rickshaw to a Muslim neighborhood in Calicut full of old mosques.  I was dropped off at the Kuttichira or Mithqalpalli Mosque, built about 700 years ago by a Yemeni trader.  It is four stories high, all of wood except for the stone walls of the first two stories.  I wasn't allowed inside, but I could look through the doors into the interior, where 24 wooden pillars stand.  An old man named Muhammad Ali took me in hand and guided me around.  Usually, I do my best to avoid these "guides," but I liked this guy.  As we walked around the mosque we were given tea by a group of men gathered in preparation for a wedding to be held that evening elsewhere.

Muhammad Ali led me south past the Kuttichiri Tank to another mosque, the Jama Masjid, a thousand years old.  It is quite a big one, and two stories high.  Its entry hall has a carved and painted wooden ceiling, which I had to look at from the outside.  We walked a little further south, down narrow, uncrowded lanes past large, old houses, with wooden shutters and wooden bars in the windows.  Muhammad told me a family of 50 might live in such a house, the mother and father plus all their daughters and their husbands and families. Kerala traditionally had a matrilineal system of property ownership.  He also pointed out an ayurvedic garden, with all sorts of different plants and two men working in it.  Ayurveda is the traditional system of Indian medicine.  We reached the Macchandipalli Mosque, more than a thousand years old, with another carved and painted wooden ceiling.  Next door is a madrassa, and inside young women all in black were reciting he Koran.  We circled through the narrow lanes back to the tank, passing friendly people on the narrow streets and in their homes.  By now it was nearing 6.  Men were sitting in the late afternoon cool around the tank. Again, they were all very friendly, and curious about where I was from.  We sat for a while at the edge of the tank in the cool and cloudy late afternoon.  Egrets, cormorants, and a duck came nearby, while a hundred or more kites or some sort of raptor flew above.  Muhammad called them eagles. Dark clouds filled the sky.

Sometime after 6 Muhammad led me alongside the tank, past the offices of the Communist Party and an Islamic party, to more narrow lanes leading past a big Jain house and temple to the railroad station.  Drops of rain began to fall on the way.  From the train station I could find my way back to my hotel.  It began to rain harder once Muhammad left me.  I got wet and ducked into shops here and there for cover before reaching the Indian Coffee House for dinner.  Inside I dried off quickly.  There were only sprinkles after dinner on my way back to my hotel.

February 27 - March 5, 2014: Through the Nilgiri Hills to Wayanad

After having traveled across the Nilgiri Hills from north to south the day before, on the 27th I crossed them again, this time from south to north.  I went to the train station in Mettupalaiyam about 6:30 in hopes of getting a train ticket to Ooty or Coonoor, despite being told all seats were sold the evening before.  I was told the same in the morning, but stayed to watch the steam engine hook up to the carriages and the train depart at 7:10 on a sunny morning.  There were only three carriages, two of first class, filled with only Indians who I suppose may have made their reservations weeks or even months in advance, and only one of second class, at most half filled with foreigners.

I left by bus a little before 9 not the busy main road to Ooty, but a much nicer road up into the hills heading to Kotagiri, a small town east of Ooty.  Kotagiri is only about 20 miles from Mettupalaiyam, but it took the bus an hour and a half to get there.  The road rose steeply from the plains, with great views down to the plains (at about 1000 feet elevation) up to about 3000 feet elevation.  The jungle along the road was particularly beautiful in the morning sunshine, with quite a few macaque monkeys appearing on the road here and there. Coffee and tea started to appear after about 3000 feet elevation as we wound our way into the hills, making seven (numbered) hairpin turns on the way to Kotagiri at about 6500 feet elevation.

From Kotagiri I almost immediately caught a bus to Ooty, about 15 miles to the west, a journey of a little over an hour.  We passed more jungle and tea and climbed to about 8000 feet in elevation near the Dodabetta Peak, one of the highest in the Western Ghats at about 8600-8700 feet.  Arriving in Ooty, where it was sunny and clear, as it had been all morning on the bus rides, a little before noon, I had lunch and a little before 1 p.m. left on bus heading northwest, through and down the Nilgiris to Gudalur.  I thought about heading back to Mudumalai National Park at Theppakadu to see if I could get a room at the Sylvan Lodge, and would have gone there if the bus that left Ooty for Masinagudi soon after noon had had any empty seats.

Gudalur is only about 30 miles from Ooty, but the trip took almost two hours.  The sky clouded up on the way, but the trip still was scenic and enjoyable.  I had about a half hour wait in Gudalur, at 3000 feet or so elevation, and then left on a bus heading about 15 miles northwest to Pattavayal just before the border with Kerala.  This was another scenic journey of more than an hour up and down but staying within the 3000-4000 range of elevation through green hills with lots of tea.  A bus headed to Sulthan Bathery in Kerala was standing by and left about 4:30.  While waiting for the bus to depart, I saw three tribal people, very dark skinned and with stringy hair, the first tribal people I had noticed in these hills which they used to dominate.

The ten mile or so trip to Sulthan Bathery through more green and lovely scenery took a little more than a half hour.  On the way we passed through a portion of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.  In town I checked into a very nice modern hotel, probably the nicest I've stayed in in India, for only 650 rupees (a bit more than $10) a night, including a very good breakfast.  The small town of Sulthan Bathery sits at about 3200 feet elevation (according to my altimeter, so that could be off by a couple of hundred feet) and got its name from a fort, now apparently disappeared, built by Tippu Sultan of Mysore in the late 1700's.  I saw several spellings of the town's name, but "Sulthan Bathery" was the most common.  I guess Tipu Sultan's fort had a battery of cannon.  This area, the northern hills of Kerala, is called Wayanad.

The next morning I was up about 5:30 and out in the dark at 6 to catch a bus to the Muthanga entrance of Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, about seven miles north of town.  A guy from the hotel waited with me as the sky began to get a little light, but after about 20 minutes with no bus arriving advised me to take an auto rickshaw, which I did for 150 rupees.  The sanctuary opened at 7 and I took a jeep safari costing 875 rupees,about $14.  The other jeeps were packed with Indians, maybe 8 to 10 of them per jeep, but I had one to myself, with driver and guide.  The route through the sanctuary was a short one, however, on a very bumpy dirt and gravel road taking us only about 45 minutes.  And we didn't see very much:  a few chital (spotted deer), a peacock and a mongoose.  After the safari I caught a bus back to town about 8:30 in time for breakfast.  I spent most of the rest of the day in an internet cafe, with a lunch break for a wonderful chicken biryani, maybe the best I've had in India.

When I got back to the hotel in the early evening I was told by the staff that a hartal, or strike, had been called that afternoon to commence the next morning at 6 and continue until 6 in the evening.  The opposition party alliance in Kerala, dominated by the Communist Party, had called the strike in protest against a central government report recommending classifying certain hill communities as eco-sensitive, with certain activities prohibited.  Kerala is famous, or perhaps infamous, for its strikes.  As a consequence, it has almost no industry, as nobody wants to deal with its labor force.  I was told that just about everything would be shut down , enforced by party members.

Kerala, by the way, was the first place in the world to elect a communist government, in 1957, and the Communist Party has alternated in government with the Congress Party over the years since.  The Communist Party here is called the CPI(M), for Communist Party of India (Marxist).  This is to distinguish itself from another Indian communist party, the plain old CPI.  Communist parties are strong in only three states in India:  Kerala, West Bengal, and tiny Tripura. And then, of course, there are the Naxalites guerrillas, who are Maoists, in much of eastern India.

The next day was wonderfully quiet, with almost no traffic.  The hospital up the street was open, as was a pharmacy in the other direction, but just about everything else was closed.  Our hotel did serve meals in its restaurant, but only to persons staying at the hotel.  I looked out in the morning and did see a bunch of guys stopping cars, apparently to ask their drivers' justifications for being on the road.  I spent most of the day in my room reading.  In the late afternoon, after about 4:30, there was a little more activity, with more traffic and a few shops opening.  I took a walk around town about 5:30 to 6 and it was very nice to be able to walk around an Indian town without having to dodge traffic and pedestrians.

The next morning things were back to normal and about 10:30 I took a bus to near the Edakkal Caves, about seven miles southwest of town.  The half hour bus ride passed through beautiful green and hilly country, with betel nut and cocoanut palms, tea, a few rice terraces, and coffee bushes in bloom, exuding a wonderful odor I could smell even from the bus.  From where the bus dropped me off I had about an hour walk up to the caves, rising about 700 feet, first on the road, then a cement path, then rock steps, and finally metal stairs.  The scenery along the way was beautiful, with the blossoming coffee bushes, betel nut and cocoanut palms, and much other vegetation, including some trees covered with bright yellow blossoms.  Lots of tourists, almost all Indian on this Sunday, were walking to and from the caves.  Lots of macaques, a few with babies clinging to their undersides, were to be seen scavenging whatever they could from the tourists. There were good views over and through the forest on the way up, and really good views up at the top, with the wide, hilly countryside below.  The second and highest of the two caves, open to sky, has walls covered with petroglyphs estimated to be 3000 years old.  Composed of lines and swirls, they are said to represent people, animals, carts and the like.

I walked down slowly, enjoying the scenery and stopping for an omelet lunch at one of the little stands catering to tourists.  A two egg omelet with onions cost me all of 20 rupees, about 30 cents.  On the way down I stopped and sat here and there to watch the macaques among the flowering coffee bushes.  I didn't see any coffee berries, only blossoms.

I got back to the bus stop junction after 3, but, instead of waiting for a bus, decided to walk to the town of Ambalavayal, where there is a museum, about three miles away.  The walk along the quiet road was pleasant, with houses full of friendly people here and there among the coffee bushes, most of whose blossoms were dying, and good views back towards the rounded, rocky hills where the caves are located. About halfway a guy on a motorcycle gave me a ride to Ambalavayal and the museum, which was closed for renovation.  He took me to the bus station, where I caught a bus back to Sulthan Bathery about 4:30.  That night in the hotel lobby I watched the end of the India-Pakistan cricket match in the Asian Cup, with Pakistan winning a very close and exciting match, to the disappointment of the Indians also watching.

The sky was cloudy the next morning about 8 as I walked to the other side of town to see a simply decorated Jain temple dating from the 14th century.  When I got back to the hotel, the television in the lobby was showing the Oscars, with the banner headline "Breaking News."  I went to breakfast, but caught a recap of the Oscars on television when I got back to my room.

About 11 I left Sulthan Bathery on a bus bound for Mananthavady, maybe 30 miles northwest.  The first hour or so of the journey traveled on back roads through scenic, hilly countryside, with lots of coffee bushes and betel nut trees and much other greenery.  Coffee is grown under trees, sometimes under the very tall and thin betel nut palms, whose thin trunks seem to reach 40 or 50 feet in some cases.  Along the way were quite a few newly built and very nice large houses.  I have read that something like a million Keralans, out of a state population of about 35 million, work in the Persian Gulf area, many returning with relative fortunes for India and building these big houses in the cool hills.  A few of them are gaudy, but most look very nice.  At places along the route, there were also red flags with a white hammer and sickle.

We reached the main road at a town called Panamaram and reached Mananthavady about half an hour later. According to my altimeter, Mananthavady was about 400 feet lower than Sulthan Bathery, so about 2800 feet if my altimeter was correct.  I found a very nice hotel for 900 rupees, or about $15.

After lunch I caught a bus a little before 2:30 heading to Tholpetty, maybe 15 miles north and the entrance for the other section of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.  I enjoyed another scenic journey through green hills full of coffee bushes, though not in blossom, and betel nut palms and much else.  I also passed, as I had on the way from Sulthan Bathery, quite a few churches, modern and very well kept up ones.  Kerala has, I think, India's highest Christian population, said to date from the arrival of St. Thomas in 52 A.D.  There are also lots of Muslims in Kerala and I've seen lots of women in Islamic headscarves.  I've only seen a few mosques here in the hills, though.  I've read that Muslims constitute 24% of Kerala's population, third highest in India after Assam and West Bengal.  I've also noticed that almost all of the hospitals and private schools that I have seen in Wayanad are Christian.  One church was called San Jose, odd since the Spanish never colonized here.  My bus on the way from Sulthan Bathery had a painting of Jesus praying, perhaps at the Garden of Gethsemane, at the front of the bus.  Colored lights set into it blinked off and on, white crosses in the two upper corners, and an arc of red lights around Jesus.

The bus entered the wildlife sanctuary before reaching Tholpetty and drove through hills covered mostly with teak trees barren or nearly so of leaves, but lots of smaller bright green leaved trees and those trees full of bright yellow blossoms, all very scenic.  There were also lots of big, tall clumps of dead bamboo.  I was told they blossom and then die off every three to four years.

I arrived at Tholpetty about 3:15 and left on a jeep safari soon after.  The price was the same as at Muthanga, 875 rupees, but the route was longer and much more scenic.  The jeeps are said to go about 15 miles over a rough road in the sanctuary, passing forests mainly of teak, with many of those yellow blossoming trees. The road in part passes by a beautiful creek. We saw lots of spotted deer, two sambar deer (each at a different location), and a very small, shy barking deer that ran off with its white tail held high. We saw a couple of turtles on a rock near a pond.  Best of all were a mother and baby elephant, though mostly obscured by bushes.  The area was beautiful in the late afternoon sun.  The safari lasted almost two hours, and afterwards I walked to a little hotel nearby surrounded by coffee bushed to check it out.  The proprietor was out so I talked with a guest until after 6 when he returned.  I didn't get a bus back to Mananthavady until 6:40, after the sun had disappeared.  There was some light until 7, so I had a few views of the forest at dusk, with a crescent moon setting. Kerala buses often lack glass windows on the sides, instead employing canvas accordion-like shades.  These were mostly up, so it was chilly on the bus.  I got back to town about 7:20

The next morning I was up before 5:30 and walked in the dark to the bus stand, getting there about ten minutes to 6.  But the promised 6 o'clock bus never showed up.  Perhaps it left early.  I did leave for Tholpetty on a 6:35 bus and enjoyed the ride through the forest in the early morning.  Getting to Tholpetty about 7:20, I booked the first jeep of the day and we spent about an hour and 45 minutes in the sanctuary, along the same route as the afternoon before, which seems to be the only route for tourists.  We saw spotted deer and langurs and macaques and eventually came across a herd of more than 20 gaur, or Indian bison, including at least three calves.  We had good views of them, but then they retreated into the bushes.  It was nice when the driver stopped the jeep and turned off the motor.  You could hear all the birds chirping away. I saw quite a few, too, including hoopoes, bright blue kingfishers, racket-tailed drongos, and lots more whose names I don't know.  We saw some fresh elephant dung on the road, and some elephant footprints, but no elephants.  We did see two Malabar giant squirrels high up a couple of trees.  One jumped from limb to limb. They seem very large, perhaps the size of a medium size dog, like a small collie.  Later, we saw another one sleeping on a limb.  It had a very long, bushy tail, with red hair at the tip.  The rest of its fur was dark brown, with white around the face.  After the safari, I caught a bus to Mananthavady about 9:20, arriving about 10.

I took the 2:20 bus back to Tholpetty, arriving about 3:15 on a warm, sunny afternoon.  We waited to start our safari until 4, as you always have a better chance to see animals early in the morning or late in the afternoon.  At first we saw nothing but a few chital (spotted deer), but then the guide spotted a bison mostly hidden by the bushes.  Eventually, about 15 of them emerged from the bushes.  One head butted a bush, knocking it over.  I don't know if it was in the way, or if he wanted to eat it, or if he was just feeling ornery, or what.  Eventually, they almost all crossed the road, some in front of us and others behind us.  Two were calves.

A little further on we saw two giant squirrels high in the trees.  These two were smaller than the ones I had seen in the morning.  One jumped quite a distance from one tree to another, seemingly barely catching the limb and then swinging from it before scampering on.  A bit further we saw three elephants, including a baby, on the slope on the other side of the creek.  They were a ways away, but we got a good view.  We drove to the end of the road and turned around.  On the way back we saw another elephant, a big one, on the far bank.  We also again passed the gaur (bison), still grazing along the road.  We finished a little before 6 and I caught the bus back soon after 6 and had to stand at first, until the first little town.  On the way back, while still in the sanctuary but only maybe a half mile from some houses, the bus passed a very large male elephant with two big tusks, standing next to a teak tree by the side of the road and using it to scratch himself.  My best view by far of a wild elephant and it comes on a 16 rupee bus ride rather than an 875 rupee jeep safari!

I got back to Mananthavady at 7.  While I was eating dinner, a temple procession passed the restaurant. First came girls dressed in white saris and holding little lamps with fire burning.  Then came several girls colorfully dressed and balancing pots with plumes upon their heads.  Finally came an elephant decorated with paint and cloth coverings, with three men riding on its back.  My fingers were greasy with chicken or I would have grabbed my camera.

The next morning it was very foggy in the dark as I walked to the bus station in time to catch the 6:35 bus to Tholpetty.  While still on the bus just after entering the sanctuary, we passed two beautiful male chital, with large antlers, right next to the road.  Under overcast skies, with the sun attempting to peak through once or twice, the jeep safari that morning was disappointing, and lasted only about an hour.  I saw a few chital, a barking deer, a mongoose, and one gaur mostly hidden by the bushes.  I caught the bus back to Mananthavady about 9, with the sun coming out on the way back.  I thought about heading to the coast, but decided to spend the day in Mananthavady, enjoying one last day in the cool climate of the hills and my nice hotel room and a nearby internet cafe.