Day 11              13^th Jan 13        Munnar.           Made it Ma - top of the world.

Across the lower jungly covered hills up, up, the road becomes one car wide. It’s Sunday and everyone is out in coaches and buses, tin traps to air conditioned luxury, not forgetting the three and four up bikes and tenacious Tuk Tuks. How do they get up here? Rattle, bang, slow for the potholes, speed up as soon as a gap is spotted, whahoo.

The hills are covered in tea plantations and turn into green felt dumplings. Cardamom farms with electric fences line the roads. Is there a smugglers’ market in cardamom? ‘No Mem it’s to keep the elephants out.’  The fences must carry quite a high charge then, I won’t get too close. I can’t associate the beautiful plump green tea leaves with the T bags I buy at home. Here the tea is made in pots and is delicious, a good brown colour. It is drunk sweet with no milk.

Crowds pass by waving and smiling, especially the children. Sunday saris are bright colours with as much glittery bling as can be afforded. Men in shirts and lungis – not many western trousers because I suppose they would be uncomfortably hot. We keep climbing and the Ghats are stunning, stretching away in the distance, misty like Japanese prints. The road cracks at the edges and becomes steep. Everyone drives in the middle and it can get complicated. A truck has become stuck across the road and a jam seems inevitable but drivers are patient as well and reverse to give it space to turn back into the queue. I wonder if Europeans have something to learn. Yes it’s dangerous but so are the M25, the Périphérique, Barcelona, and Rome in the rush hour.

We turn a corner and there is the Casa del Fauna sitting, waiting for us. What a place:

what a view:

I'm coming back here too.

We roll down the drive and wander into the bungalow. No-one there. Birds and whispering bamboos mingle with sounds of far away cars. A man in a woolly beanie sweeping the leaves from the grass runs off and comes back with another smiley man who is embarrassed not to have been here to welcome us. He takes me inside and shows me a lovely room.

I sit outside for a sandwich lunch and a cold beer. The label on the bottle says, ‘drunken driving is punishable.’

The view from Casa del Fauna. 

The road outside shows they really haven't got their heads round rubbish disposal. There is a fortune waiting to be made by someone inventing bin men.

Only three rooms in the Casa and we all eat together but at separate tables. A very personal service. The man looking after us asks me if I would like to go for a short walk in the jungle – why not?

We walk down into the undergrowth 

I ask if there are tigers? ‘ No Mem. ‘ ‘Elephants?’ ‘ Yes wild elephants.’ ‘ Will we see them?’ ‘ If we do we will be running quickly back to the bungalow, Mem, they are very dangerous.’ ‘OK.’

We see a banyan tree but no Buddha. It is a pleasant walk, cooler here on top of the mountains.

An English couple arrive. We talk. They paid to take a tour of the Delhi slums and were horrified to witness the deprivation. Money earned from these tours goes towards helping slum dwellers. I cannot rationalise the necessity to witness first hand something we all know exists. But then maybe we don’t all know it. Perhaps seeing it does make a difference. I think of London at the time of Hogarth. We had deprivation but over time and with investment we moved away from such chronic poverty. Perhaps India is in its Georgian era. Certainly Kerala doesn’t suffer the same kind of poverty as Mumbai and Delhi. India is a big, big country, full of contradictions and fascinations.

I retire quite early and sleep deeply. Off to Cochin tomorrow for the final two days.