Holiday in Thekkady - 1

The date: May 22nd, 2010. We landed in hot sultry Cochin and took the 5 and a half hour drive to Thekkady.
The route is green – with a vengeance. Houses sprout up on tree branches and tree trunks, from certain angles :) Picture this green, green, brown tree trunk, green, green, brown tree trunk, pinkyellowpurple, green, green, brown tree trunk, fluorescent green and yellow, rainbow stripes, green, green, brown tree trunk, lavenderwhite, orangepurple, darkblueandwhite…

By the time we reached our hotel it was 7 p.m. and dark and cool. Note the time of year as I say this – we had just come from very hot, sweaty Mumbai to very hot Cochin to this complete climate contrast. Hotels in Thekkady are not fitted with an AC. The temperature remains cool through the year.

The next morning was a visit to the Spice Plantation. Ho hum, a walk in a park. This is a privately owned estate that has government permission to open its gates to visitors. The estate grows a huge variety of medicinal plants, spices and coffee. This is an ornamental plant - Angel’s Trumpet - it's larger than my palm.

The climate is excellent for exotic plants. This is the Bird of Paradise – an orchid that was imported from Brazil and grows better here. It can grow up to 4 feet in height and is used for decorating wedding halls of the super-rich (poor plant).

We went past the nest of a weaver bird – this bird has a ‘swayamvae’ (husband choosing) that would make us eat our hearts out. When it is time to nest, the male builds nests with place for rooms and picks twigs and soft material to make for plush interiors. They catch fireflies and attach them into the nest for light. The female of the species goes from house to house to check construction quality, electricity availability and interior design and finally chooses the guy with the best house. Thus spared of housing loans and EMIs the weaver bird gets settled to married life in a housing society with neighbours of its own kind.

We came across a little pond of water with a basking turtle in the centre. As we watched the turtle, something blue flashed in the water. We looked closer to find tiny, um tadpoles? No, guppy fish.

This is the Kerala Government's response to the threat of chikungunya and dengue. Guppy fish are happy to live off the larvae of mosquitoes and nip into a big chunk of the mosquito’s population expansion program. These fish are natives of Trinidad and were imported to India and freed into the fresh water. The flash of blue is from the tail of the male as it tries to attract attention. The trouble with the male of this species is that they devour everything, including their young without a blink.

Good news is, they breed rapidly, so fast that despite all that devouring there are always enough guppies in the water. In fact, the female of the species frees the eggs into the water in batches to increase the rate of survival. The male is comfortable with this regular food supply.

There was a cinnamon tree stripped off its bark – the outer bark is what we consume. In order to keep the tree in good health, one half of the bark is stripped and allowed to grow back before the other half is stripped. However, visitors to the site have seen the tree, stripped the bark without heeding the guide due to which it has died. Visitors are no longer taken to the live trees.

We came to a huge bamboo tower that dates back to more than a century when Thekkady was pure forest with huge herds of marauding elephants. The tower allows a view far, far into the forest so a minor rustle could be caught and people could get away while the elephants ate their crop and tore their homes down.

The stairs to the top of the tower

At the top of the tower

We came across tiny chillies - the size of a fingertip. These are the spicy Kandhari chillies. Keralites use a lot of coconut in their food and spice it up with Kandhaari chillies, these tiny bombs counter cholesterol. The incidence of high BP among these people is low because of the use of this chilli. Good for us, I can plant these chillies at home - maybe go on to own a chilli plantation - or so I thought. I'd market the chilli for its cholesterol combating capability maybe even as a weight loss agent. 'It burns your mouth so you can't eat more.'

I planted the seeds after returning to Mumbai - the saplings came up, tender leaves grew and got neatly clipped off by an interested sparrow :( and put paid to my agriculturist plans.

The 1.5 hour walk ended in the shop where medicines, oils and coffee are sold. We moved out of the plantation feeling mighty pleased with our education.

Trekking in Thekkady - 2

An interesting part of our trip was the Cloud Walk. There are a variety of walks conducted by the forest department – some a few hours long and others that stretch into three days.

We were enamoured of the Cloud Walk as opposed to the Nature Trail which sounded like the difference between walking among something versus walking on something. We were guided to the base of the mountain and met by a female guide. Most important, the forest guide’s office had clean bathrooms, Indian style. After a morning spent outdoors, this was really important to us. The cloud walk trail takes you up a thickly forested mountain that will hopefully be thick with clouds at some point. We were given leech socks to wear.

Bala and Anand wearing leech socks

The walk was nice. We would walk past huge walls of green to be met by surprise openings of fresh breeze. We saw different types of plants, almost saw a rat snake as we chatted (it chose to hide in the bushes) – elephant grass abounds and is a favourite of elephants for eating and of humans for thatching roofs. The grass is pointed and rough.

Part of the way, the guide stopped at a divide and explained that there were two routes we could take – she pointed one that was dense forest with no path and less air and another that was better-lit and open. Then she started a short monologue that I reproduce here with a few asides :

Dark road, very dangerous. Bears, wild elephant and wild buffalo. If bear smell comes, we must turn and go back- (turns out they are unpredictable, territorial and dangerous so you don’t want to wait for the smell to metamorphose into a real bear, if you wish to stay, she was clear that she would go anyway). If you want to go, I’ll take you.

Elephant comes suddenly and quietly. These bulky fellows trample grass, strip plants from the ground and uproot trees in their elephant fashion, but they do all this quietly. When they appear, the best thing to do is get down on your haunches and slide down the nearest incline. Elephants do not like to come down steep inclines - can lead to injuries to the leg (though they are adept at climbing them) and will limit themselves to blaring in protest. If you want to go, I’ll take you.

There are herds of wild buffalo, if one charges at you, nothing can be done; normally they ignore your presence. And yes, there are cobras, vipers and rattlesnakes in the abundant grass, and yes, they bite if you stand on their tails unwittingly. And yes, people die of their bites. Oh yes, I know the herb to save lives but the herb should be available nearby, besides it grows on the top of a tall tree. But don’t worry, normally snakes just go by. If you want to go, I’ll take you.

We looked at her like she was mad . Our choice was clear. She explained, it is my duty to tell trekkers and sometimes people want to go.
So, there have been deaths?
Yes, she said simply. Sometimes, tourists go close to the elephants and click photos. The flash makes them wild. Sometimes they scream in excitement and the animal reacts. People do all kinds of things.

We walked along the safe path. Bala had come on the cloud walk to well, walk in clouds.
‘Afternoon time, sir, no clouds. Evening time, sir, yes clouds but animals also coming sir.’ So we went ahead on the cloud walk without clouds.

No mist, no cloud

There was another divergence, we could walk up a higher mountain or move straight to the watch tower. We chose watch tower. Our pace was quite slow and the guide talked about her life. She wakes up at 4 a.m. and reports to work at 6 a.m. She makes about 3 three-hour treks every day. Goes home in the evening and cooks for her husband and three kids. She has a small plot of land – 1 cent (1/100th of an acre) and she grows coffee, kandhaari chillies and a few vegetables. Her coffee plant provides enough supply for a year, which is a huge relief to her family because they all relish the beverage.

Shaky watch tower with gaps at the top

The 4-storeyed watch tower was dilapidated – it’s like this, you have now reached some thousand feet above sea level (didn’t start at zero, so don’t gasp!). The wind whips you in the face; you make your way through poky elephant bush to reach the watch tower to find that it shakes in the wind. Okay, you tell yourself, she does this every day and start the climb to reach the top and wham – a hugely corroded tile right at the top (straight out of the first chapter of 'Kidnapped'). You cross gingerly past it and find another large square of corrosion ahead.

Now this tower normally is supposed to have two forest officers who can get a view of any poaching activity. Of the last few years this tower has been in disuse. Repeated requests for repair have gone unnoticed. The government has to approve before any action can be taken and since it appears as item 112,154 on the government’s list of things to do, nobody's noticed it as yet.

On the way back we passed through a few tribal settlements and Anand took out his camera to click a calf that was sitting on the side of the road.

Unimpressed calf

Two children came running out of their homes and watched him click. As soon as he turned towards them – they posed.

Can you say no to this?

I know we shouldn’t have but at that time, he took a snap of the kids. The girl ran to tell her mother (in red at the far end of the photo) who smiled thinly at me and put a protective arm around her daughter as I walked past.

Lesson learnt. Never again.

End of trek – end of day. What do three intrepid mountaineers do after they reach base camp – they search for dosa and a cup of coffee. We went to hotel after hotel after hotel only to be told that dosas count as breakfast. People don’t eat dosa for lunch and hotels are not mad to serve people dosas at unearthly hours like 4 p.m. So we settled for some fruits and returned to the hotel.