From A(shram) to B(each) - Amritapur to Varkala

Thursday 28 February

Surreptitious photo of Ashram entrance

I sleep surprisingly well despite my thin mattress on the floor and am not woken by the 4 am rising bell. So it's 5 am by the time I emerge from my little room, shaped like a wedge of Stilton cheese. The committed "ashramites" (ashra mites?) are well stuck in to chanting the thousand names of the Almighty One, but I have a few minutes for contemplation before joining the queue for free tea at 6 (we were warned not to tarry or it would be gone, which it was.) I am reminded yet again of what it feels like to be a stranger in an unfamiliar world. "Where are the cups?" I have to ask. "In the bucket, (stupid - implied)". Later, I'm not sure which queue to join for the free breakfast, so cop out and buy cornflakes and a cheese omelette at the pay cafe instead. The daily schedule lists morning meditation on the beach, near the yoga station, so I make my way down there. I perch myself upon a damp rock to watch the sun rise, only to discover that my white cotton bedwear now has an embarrassing brown-stained backside, stupid. I creep back in and change.

Just "hanging out", 60 mph

After a session in the ashram internet cafe, I purchase replacement second-hand white trousers for Rs. 10, then rendezvous at 11 with Katriona and check out. By now, Her Holiness Amma is already stuck into another busy day of hugs, but we take a bumpy rickshaw ride to the nearest station, 12 kms. away at Kayamkulam. We buy second class tickets, but the train (which has come all the way from Delhi) is an hour late. At least I can lean out of the open train doors unchallenged (they probably bother less about second class passengers falling out!), an exhilarating sensation especially when we cross viaducts and pass within sight of the sea. [Wind-blown hair also illustrates recent haircut & beard trim!]

Varkala has a top notch beach - clean and beautiful with a lane of small shops and hotels running along the top of its striking red cliffs. So it's hardly surprising that it is populated largely by Europeans, mainly (young) Brits and French. Having inspected a number of places to stay, I check in at the "Hill Top Ayurvedic Guest House and Dental Spa" while Katriona finds a funky-painted room in a place next door. Hill Top is just the place to end a 3-week trip. It has steps down to the sea, and my room has a breezy private balcony and a view south along the beach. It'll also be handy if I develop toothache. I can see and hear the surf without even leaving my bed. After a rest, I head down to the cliff steps and dunk myself in the warm breakers. Delicious!

Room with a view

Varkala, unlike elsewhere in Kerala, has a relaxed if covert, attitude to alcohol. The restaurants here serve beer in pottery mugs (you don't have sight of the bottle, they bring two full mugs to the table). There are "mocktails" (alcohol-free cocktails) and the real thing too. Spirits in cocktails (popular) are "coded", as the waiter puts it. Gin is G-juice, Rum is R-juice, Vodka is V-juice and so on. Most of the waiters here are Tibetan and several restaurants have a string of prayer flags flapping from their terraces. It feels familiar.

Amritapuri - I am Hugged by a living Goddess

Wednesday 27 February

I refine/change my plans yet again and this morning cancel a train trip and a flight and book a new flight for Sunday from Trivandrum to Mumbai. Its all so easy online! Matthew runs me down to the ferry quay on his scooter, where I meet up with Katriona and board the Kollum boat. This ferry is aimed at tourists, which is why it costs twenty times as much as Monday's local ferry. In return, there's a fancy souvenir ticket and soft but grubby seats. There's also a clean loo and a covered upper deck (stooping required) for a firm but breezier ride. The ferry is only about a quarter full, so I dodge around from level to level and side to side according to the view.

Coracle Fishers

Which is a re-run of yesterday - palm-fringed river banks or raised canals plus a lock and a lake or two, brightly-painted cottages, people ambling along under umbrellas, fishing and domestic chores, a floating shop, "Chinese" nets (out of action), and boys paddling fishing from coracles. We stop for a quick but tasty veggie lunch served on a paper banana leaf, then on again to Amritapuri where K and I disembark along with half the passengers. We are punted across the river in a canoe, and are soon checking in at the Amritapuri Ashram's International Arrivals desk. Ashram rules: no meat, no loud voices, no photography, no sex, alcohol or smoking, no bright or immodest clothes, practise brahmachrya ("hugging, kissing and holding hands is inappropriate" - wot, no hugging? See below.) There are about 3000 guests staying, about half and half Indian and Western, all ages including children, more female than male. Many wear all or part white, so I don my nightwear trousers (thin white cotton, knee-length, baggy) and think I look the part. Everybody smiles at me. Indeed, everyone smiles - all the time - and so do I.

Ashram from the river

Now I am not an ashrammy sort of person, so have little idea of what to expect, but I think this is not the norm. For a start, the main ashram building is a huge pink tower block. Her Holiness Mata Amritanandamayi is not only India's most famous guru, she is regarded by some as a living saint / goddess. She is a "global phenomenon", raising vast sums for good causes worldwide. She coolly wrote out a cheque for US$22 million, for example, for relief following the tsunami, and her foundation builds homes, schools and free hospitals for the Indian poor. She even runs a free food programme for homeless people in New York. She's Mother Teresa big time. Like MT, Amma leads a simple personal life; unlike MT, Amma's organisation really benefits huge numbers of people in tangible ways. I join Katriona for the introductory video and orientation tour, and later visit the shops, internet cafe and basic restaurants - even more basic food is provided free.

Amma, as she's called, has a unique trademark - she showers divine love by hugging people (despite prohibition, above). Since the 1980s she's hugged an estimated 30 million people, and today she hugs me too!!! After queuing for the best part of two hours, my turn for Amma's "Darshan" finally comes. I follow the rules (on printed sheet): wipe my face first, remove my spectacles, and don't put my arms round her body. One of her acolytes gently eases me into her arms, she says something incomprehensible ("majorga, majorga, majorga") in my ear, then gives me a banana and a beatific smile, and it's all over in about 15 seconds. Some get much longer. Other people apparently report being overcome by an intense feeling of love. I don't, though I do come away smiling. It was worth the wait, just.

It's 11.30 pm. Amma is still hugging her last few devotees of the day (she's been at it since 11 am). Everyone in the hall stands as the band winds up with its final Bhajan. But my eye is caught by a huge brown cockroach advancing across the floor towards me in stages. Is everyone else just very short sighted, or is there also a prohibition on roachicide? I can ignore it no longer, so I step out as if casually and tread hard on the creature causing it to explode with a loud pop. This, too, makes me smile.

Kerala Waterland

Tuesday 26 February

There's a new face at the table this morning, Katriona from Brazil, who has dropped in for breakfast courtesy of Matthew, the owner. Katriona is planning a small boat cruise round the Backwater bye-ways and is looking for someone to share the experience and the cost of hiring a boat. I jump at the chance, and an hour later we are puttering down the town canal in a sleek little motor launch, like an Edwardian gentleman's Thames steam launch but without the steam (there's a gently purring outboard motor on the back end.) 

Heading off. Note feet in foreground

We have signed up for a four hours cruise at Rs. 300 (£3.50) per hour, the going rate. Katriona and I get on like old chums; we share a love of sailing and travel, though there seem to be few countries she has not visited. She is a lady who does things by halves. She is half Russian, half Italian. She goes off travelling for half of every year. When not away, she spends half her time in Brazil (contains nuts) and half in California, and when there, she is half on her 50ft yacht and half in her apartment. And for half of today, we are sharing the delights of a Backwater cruise.

Vinan (?), our skipper and guide, leads us from broad rivers via narrow side cuts to weed-filled dykes. It is peaceful and picturesque. At every bend a new vista opens up, like a series of living dioramas illustrating daily life in watery Kerala. Here's a woman pounding laundry, there a child having his hair washed in river water. An apronned housewife dressed like a Dutch peasant guts fish, throws the offal to a posse of hopping crows. Six men paddle a narrow canoe at speed, and another passes so heavily laden with cans of kerosene that the slightest wash would sink it. A motor launch, similar to ours, has a group of young Indian men aboard, playing loud music on a boom box. They all take out their digital cameras and snap us as we pass. Secondary pupils in neatly pressed uniforms spill out of their riverside school and coyly practise their English on us as we pass. And there are birds - swan-necked cormorants in the trees puffing out their cheeks, ducks coots and divers, heron and egrets walking on stilts in the shallows.

 We make just one stop, at the St. Joseph's Cement Works and Rabbit Farm, where we drink fresh coconut water (Katriona knows all about coconuts, being from Brazil) and there's a loo should we need it. This is a varied enterprise - not just cement, baby rabbits and coconut juice for boatees, but fantail pigeons, parrot nesting boxes and a hand-reared baby eagle too. 

We're back in town mid-afternoon, and (with little need of persuasion) I lure Katriona into a bar. Bars, Kerala-style (if you can find one) are all-male preserves. I sampled one last night. They are dark, dingy and grubby, full of bleary-eyed men downing glasses of spirits. I secure a chilled beer, and K takes a rum and Pepsi, then likes the rum so much she buys a half bottle. This must be wrapped in newspaper to disguise it before she's allowed out on the street. Shades of American prohibition. Over our drinks, we hatch a plot to meet up again tomorrow for the next leg of the journey south.

Temple service at dusk

This evening I tramp around town, winding up at the main temple, a smaller version of Ettumanur. A steady stream of men and women arrive for a ceremony at sundown, clasping the hands to their foreheads in prayer. Lamps are lit and two bands of musicians (jazzy horn and drums) echo each other both outside and in the central inner sanctum. At the end, a bell tolls and a flame is brought out and passed around for the worshipers to hold their hands in the flame and touch their heads. It is a sort of Hindu Benediction. 

I fail to find an acceptable alternative to last night's restaurant, so I return there for fish, not duck. I also fail to buy Sara a dressing gown or any other things on her list. This is an odd tourist town that doesn't cater for tourists. Even the Kashmiri pashmeena purveyors haven't established a toe-hold yet. I suspect that most of the (very many) people who come here base themselves either on the houseboats or fancy waterside holiday complexes with all food and facilities provided. 

By ferry through Kerala Backwaters

Mon 25 February

A long, hot walk into town for an agonisingly slow session on the www (world wide wait). The town is a mix of the ultra modern, the merely scruffy, and the crumbling old Keralan style of buildings with tiled, pointy roofs like Pagodas. Back via another oily temple where I sneak into the sanctuary, but am shooed out as soon as spotted. Keralan Hinduism seems to be of a simple Calvinist persuasion as there are few idols. But many incense sticks and brass lamps, for which they sell "oil offerings" in Mazola bottles.

Everyone I ask has a different opinion on 1) the time and 2) the point of departure of the state-run ferry boat to Allepuzha -  still, by the way, generally known as Alleppey, with the stress on the first syllable. The first problem is in making myself understood at all. Keralans, you see, pronounce "boat" as "bought", so "When is the bought to Alleppey?" (or "Alleppey bought it go when?" to put it in Indian pidgin) indeed doesn't make much sense. This difficulty is exacerbated by a common Keralan mannerism which involves responding with a little shake of the head. It's actually a sort of combined nod, shake, twist and flex that could be developed into a yogic exercise or a cure for RSI. Is it a yes or a no, or maybe just a maybe? It's hard to tell, especially when not accompanied by verbalisation. I must look it up in a Dictionary of Indian Body Language. Eventually I find a rickshaw driver with a steady head who knows his "boats" from his "boughts" and who claims to know for certain that it is 12.30, or thereabouts, (and has enough English to tell me). I agree his fee sans haggle, and we head out of town past the villas of the rich to a track alongside a weed-covered canal. There's no sign of life, just a foraging goat or two and some long-abandoned wreck of an old wooden boat in the far distance. 

Yes, you've guessed: this is the ferry. I am the first passenger to arrive with well over an hour to wait. I head for the front seat (we won't encounter any hairpin bends at breakneck speed) and check the location of the lifejackets just in case. Unlike the Munnar bus (or December's Calcutta tram) there is no "ladies only" sign, or if there once was, it has long since peeled off with most of the rest of the paint. So I go for a wander, shirtless for some air conditioning as it is very hot, 90 degrees F +.

This is a watery world, like the undrained Fens, or the Broads before anyone beyond Norfolk knew of them. The river is thick with quacking ducks - mallard-type, few drakes - and also with mauve-flowered water hyacinth, so thick the duck can waddle across them. It is hard to see how the old ferry will prise its way through. There's a footbridge over a tributary where someone is feeding what turns out to be crushed sea shells to the duck, then herding them towards the main river with the help of a second man punting a narrow black boat. One of them pulls a duck from the quacking melee and stuffs it, along with a bottle of mango juice, into a sack. Curried duck tonight. 

Beyond the raised river bank is a shallow mere with a boat out fishing, and a couple of brightly painted marshmen's cottages are perched along the bank; a woman does her washing in the river, thwack-thwacking her laundry against a stone quayside. I feel as if I've stepped into a Dutch old master landscape painting. 

As 1.30 departure time nears, a few figures appear along the tow path, and a couple of tuk-tuks rattle down and deposit passengers. The skipper takes his place in the wheelhouse on the roof, a hefty diesel grumbles into life, and the ferryboat laboriously executes a turn to head down west. I pay my fare of Rs. 9 to the conductor - that's 10p, not bad for a 3 1/2 hour boat trip. And so we head off for Alleppey, our first scheduled stop at a little staithe conveniently next to a hut labelled Toddy Shop. 

In the toddy shop, ferry waits outside

This is my chance to try the local hooch, so I go ashore and sit at a big table in the gloomy interior while they bring my glass of diluted and cloudy palm spirit. Meanwhile, someone has stripped to his lunghi and dived under the boat to pull a tangle of weed roots off the propeller  Then the engine starts again, I am summoned by the conductor, the engine bell rings (it is controlled from above by a clanging ship's telegraph system) and we head off downstream, gathering more and more passengers at each stop. This is a well-used service linking what are in effect marsh islands, only accessible by boat.

The narrow canal leads onto a broad waterway, and then to a lake which we cross towards the town. This is where we meet more and more "rice barges", the ungainly houseboats with rounded palm-thatch covered roofs which are the mainstay of the local tourist trade. As we approach Alleppey town up a narrowing waterway, a procession of these lumbering craft makes its way out, ready to moor up somewhere along the banks for a night of solitude. At least, that's the sales pitch. Tourism is now big business here, so let's hope Kerala has not pressed the self-destruct button.

Basic en-suite facilities guaranteed

Failing to find my first choice of guesthouse (it has moved) I wind up at the Venice Castle Homestay. In most ways it's much the best place I have stayed - a beautiful and spacious marble-floored house set in an exotic garden, not unlike our one-time home in Dar es Salaam. The bed feels luxuriantly soft and comfortable after two weeks on thin, hard mattresses made for Indian ascetics. The Venice name is not entirely fanciful, as I hope the photo shows.

Sign of the day

Munnar to Kottayam

Sun 24 February

My laundry is back, all compressed and neat, and I persuade the hotel to fry me eggs (sunny side) instead of the standard vulcanised omelette. It's a good start to the day broken only by the gloom of the Sunday Express (rather more serious and intelligently written than its English namesake. But sombre, apart from the picture of David Cameron looking silly in one of those bandanna things they sell to pilgrims at Amritsar). I'm leaving Munnar all too soon and as I wait for the taxi make a mental list of all the things I would have liked to do - visit the Tea Museum, the RC Church (despite its externally broadcast noisy services), the twee CSI (Anglican) ditto and (maybe) that Club, take a cycle ride, eat some dhosas on the street, get a rickshaw to the Toddy Shop to try the local palm spirit. But this is the drawback of whistlestop tours. Next time I do a trip like this, perhaps I'll do fewer places in more depth. Or maybe not. I suffer an irresistible urge to try and do everything, which is a bit silly.

Munnar town from "David's Regency" hotel. More practice with the panorama button.

Josip (Joseph?), today's taxiwallah, wears his faith on his dashboard. No discrete fish symbols here; they're strictly for fishers of fish. J has ornamented his car with a plastic Our Lady and a St. Francis, two crucifixes (one glued, one  dangling), a yellow Lamborghini, a cherub wearing a bobble hat, and two rosaries. The longer (five "mysteries") of the latter swings from side to side and once, when we swerve to avoid a juggernaut on a bend, gets caught in J's wristwatch with potentially dire consequences. Josip, like most Indian drivers, also has an unshakable faith in his own ability to see round blind bends. This is an matter (not the only one) on which I take an heretical view. I'm glad we're not in a Lambo.

After an hour or so we hit the level and I ask to pull up at a roadside stall, where I buy a hand of five finger bananas, a slice of strongly-spiced pineapple ring and a cup of chai. Another customer has them make up what looks like a uniquely horrid drink - half milk (or curd), half soda water, with crushed red and green chillies and salt. Must give him fire in his belly.

Josip takes a series of minor roads rather than the main road route shown on my map, but we duly make our pre-arranged stop at Ettumanur, not far short of Kottayam. Ettumanar is famed for its 16th century Hindu Shiva temple, whose traditional Keralan style is quite different from temples elsewhere. The inner sanctum is shut (opens 6 pm), but I wander sandalless round the outer courts. There are no "Hindus only" signs, but notices politely ask men to remove their "shirt, beniyan and lunki" (?) and switch off their mobiles before entering the shrine (when open). The outer areas have modern roofs to north and south, to shelter vast crowds for major festivals. This is one of the richest temples in the region and can muster an army of elephants for its festivals, as well as two gold ones.

Most ritual-based religions have a thing about flames. Here there's one on a gold-plated pole that has not gone out for 450 years. Back home in Wymondham we have a candle "pricket stand" where the faithful few leave their little flames burning. At Ettumanur, the outside walls of the shrine are entirely covered in shallow oil bowls, shaped like open Roman oil lamps, and as I "circumambulate", two men are replacing the wicks in each one. It will take a long time. There are 2,500 lamps on each side - I counted them (well, not individually) - making a staggering total of 10,000 candles.  How's that a mega-symbol of light and life? When I return to my sandals I discover that the soles of my feet are black with oil from the plinth round the shrine.

16th century Shiva

On to Kottayam. From Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things I'd formed an impression of a rather cosy, laid back little town. Not at all. The Rough Gide is right - you wouldn't stay here unless you were passing through and really had to. Which I suppose is the case. Tomorrow I hope to be able to catch a ferry from here to Allepey (Allepuzha). I put up in a "bottom end medium" (like the haircut) hotel next to the ferry jetty, though the boats are entirely hemmed in by a dense growth of water hyacinth (?) and don't look as if they've moved for a long time. 

My room has aircon (hurray) and two single beds with thin, firm mattresses. I pile one on top of the other, hoping it may feel softer. It doesn't. The TV offers a rich variety of channels, either Hindi with Malayaman subtitles, or vice versa. But the Hotel Athira International ("near municipal bus stand") advertises a Rooftop Bar and Restaurant, which is one of the reasons for my choice. It is a breezy affair, dimly lit principally by the light of a large but empty fish tank whose former residents have possibly been consumed as "chilly fish" or "fish curry" on the menu. But I am able to consume two bottles of Kingsisher Gold (first alcohol for over a week) and Ginger Chicken, the first of 25 chicken dishes on offer, more than doubling the tally of the  famous "Twelve Days of Christmas Turkey" rhyme. It is delicious. The last named on this list is a little troubling in this ecumenical age: "Catholic Chicken".  I may hold heretical views, but I don't want to eat chickens from different theological traditions.

No walking on water at this temple pond

Lake District, Munnar

Ullswater? No, Munnar. Wordsworth would feel at home. No golden daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze, but yellow jasmine, scarlet hibiscus, purple jacaranda plus flame trees and wild poinsettia along the road sides. An open-air garden centre.

Munnar - Tea and Tourism

Saturday 23 February

An early wake-up at 4 am when a car backed up right outside my (ground floor) window starts up and idles its diesel engine.  Though my windows are closed, before long the room fills with diesel fumes. I go through to reception, but the receptionist is fast asleep on the floor, so I open my window, climb out and hammer on the car roof. The driver explains that his battery is "down" and he's charging it up. I explain my predicament (he seems to understand "poisoned") and agrees to re-park on the other side of the road. Resume sleep.

My daytrip white taxi arrives, as booked, at 10 driven by Siva, the "brother" (flexible designation) of last night's man Hari. I opt for the front seat and belt up, clunk, click. "Excuse sir," says Siva, "No need belt. I am good driver. You are safe with me." "But what about the idiot in the other car?" I don't say. I make an excuse about "habit" and the law in the UK, but he doesn't swallow it and I think takes slightly against me. Siva is a young man of faith, not just in his own driving, but hedges his bets with a plastic Ganesh stuck on the dashboard and luminous rosary beads dangling from the mirror.

 

We head into the hills, following the set Rs. 1000 itinerary. First stop is the "honey tree", where huge crusted honeycombs hang from the upper branches. 

The honeycomb man

 Then to a viewpoint in the tea plantations, where women carry sacks of fresh cut tea on their heads down the slopes, just like a Ty-Phoo advert. We go on to the first of two dams whose reservoirs have created a mini Lake District on the eastern edge of Kerala. Today, Saturday, both sites are crawling with Indian tourists, many of them groups of young men, though there are a few families and school groups too. Happily, mixed groups of rowdy teenagers are largely unknown in India. Inevitably, I get dragged into several photos. 

One of the lads?

 There are stalls selling snacks and souvenirs (and tea), riding horses, pedalos on the lakes, and shooting ranges. I chance Rs. 10 on three shots with an air rifle, burst three balloons on a board nailed to a tree (it's not difficult), and win an orange plastic whistle.

The final stop on the upward trail is at, or just before, Top Station, the highest road point (2100 m) on the border with Tamil Nadu state. It's dramatic scenery, and a dramatic change in weather too. On the west it is clear and sunny, but to the east of the ridge it is so misty that the high peaks and the valleys below are hard to make out. 

I've discovered how to work the panorama facility on the camera!

Every hillside is clothed in lines of fresh green tea bushes, either vertical or horizontal or patchy according to the terrain. Siva leaves me to wander down through the plantations, where groups of men and women are cutting the bright green new shoots off the tops of the low tea bushes. They chop at the bushes with special shears that incorporate a collecting bag. (Later, in Munnar, I watch a blacksmith making them).

Shaving the fresh shoots off the top of the bushes

Back in Munnar, I explore the town's few streets, the Shiva temple, the small bazaar and covered market. There are some shops selling souvenir teas and spices, herbal oils and chocolate to tourists, but otherwise it's a working town and agreeable for that. Spotting a salon, I decide the holiday souvenir haircut is overdue, my last cut being in Calcutta (see blog, 3 December). The Munnar salon has three chairs and does brisk business offering a range of services including a choice of massages (face, head and body), face masking (?) and face bleaching (!). But I stick to a basic cut and beard trim. I say "not short, not long", and he says "medium, OK?" My barber is gentle, thorough and has steady hands on the cutthroat and I am well pleased, though I barely recognise myself after the crop. I'd call it the bottom end of medium. The customer in the next seat has the temerity to complain about something, and is rewarded with a sharp slap on the cheek. After dark, the evening turns truly cold and I'm shivery even in the sweatshirt. Older men wrap strips of cloth round their heads and look just like the walking wounded traipsing back from the trenches.

I consider pulling strings (if I have any) and negotiating my way into The High Range Club. But, unfortunately for me, they have a dinner jacket only policy after 7 pm on Saturdays!

Not sure what Churchill would think of his bridge surrounded by Communist posters!

Painted on a wall near Munnar town centre:

Grace, Love, Mercy - All The Three -  Stand for One Same Reality - Life's Star

He who Loves is Who Really Lives.

The Cochin to Munnar Bus

Friday 22 February

Today I leave Cochin and head for the coolth of Munnar, a hill station high in the Western Ghat Mountains. I share a breakfast table with an Aussie teacher who's just completing a PhD on teachers who are bullied by their colleagues. She started while working at a school in deprived Margate, and is now teaching in deprived Kerala. She's finally persuaded her colleagues that teaching Indian children to parrot English nursery rhymes by rote does not teach them English (they don't understand a word.) Kerala is getting back to normal after the strike, which she says most people welcomed as it gave them two days' holiday, something they never normally get. I'm back to "normal", too, packing and repacking my case trying to find things I only just put down. My UK SIM card has gone missing. I finally get away at 11, take a tuk-tuk to the ferry jetty and enjoy the trip across the harbour to Ernakulam (modern Kochi city). Pass a pod (or whatever) of porpoises heading out to sea.

Cochin Harbour ferry

So I wave goodbye across the water to Fort Cochin, with regrets. With its narrow streets and squares of tatty colonial relics and renovated hotels and homestays, it is a tourist trap, mainly for Europeans. This is despite the heaps of garbage that make the streets among the filthiest I have encountered, a close second to Varanasi. I have not heard a single American voice since I arrived in South India, but here there are lots of Brits, young and old, including families (it's half term week), almost as many French, plus Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch, but no Russians, unlike Goa.

I have just missed a Munnar bus and have over an hour's wait at the bus station (which has "platforms"). Unlike train stations with their plethora of notices garnishing every surface, the bus station has a dearth of information, not even a timetable or ticket office. But the man in the information booth is helpful and later points me to where my big white state bus is waiting to load.

I'm one of the first to board and nab a seat at the front just behind the driver's seat. A European of indeterminate accent, who's done the trip before, comes up to me and says, "Excuse, sir. You don't want to sit there." Why not? "It's too frightening. You can see the road. It goes 'zar, zar, zar'", he says, waving his finger from side to side like a conductor beating 3 - 4 time. Undeterred, I stay put. But not for long. When the (bus) conductor arrives, he points his conductor's finger at me, then up at a sign painted discreetly above my seat in curly Malayaman script. "That," he tells me, "says 'Ladies Only'. You must move." Indeed, the first five rows of seats on the starboard side all say 'Ladies Only' in Malayaman (a language incidentally with 19 vowels and 32 consonants and a nightmare for typewriter manufacturers). And, of course, by this time the rest of the bus is all but full. I protest, "I've been sitting here for ten minutes and now you tell me!" He relents (a little) and orders someone else to move so I can at least go next to a window, sharing a seat with an elderly man with a lunghi (Gandhi-style midriff cloth) and very few teeth.

We set off on time at 12.40, though it is 2.10 before we finally leave behind the suburbs of Ernaculam. It's hard to comprehend how big even small Indian cities can be. Further along, we start to climb into the foothills of the Ghats. The bus is like a giant tin box on wheels, not uncomfortable, but lacking any attempt at refinement. It's a "bog standard" state bus, but good enough for plebs like me. The windows are unglazed, but with pleated drop-down shutters, and it's exhilarating to have the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. But the old bus can certainly shift, pitching and rolling on the meandering road, its deep horn booming out at every bend like a lightship's fog warning. The last hour (it takes nearly five) is the scary bit, when the road narrows and the not-quite-hairpin bends start. Now I'm glad I'm near the back and cannot see the road ahead. The man was right. We stop at a small town, where teenage boys heading home from school squeeze in the standing spaces or sit four to a double seat. Their faces light up at the next stop, outside a convent girls school where the girls are waiting in crisp uniforms straight from the pages of Angela Brazil. Not sure if the boys understand double entendre, but the school is, I hope inappropriately, named Passion Mount. What were the nuns thinking of?

Nearly there - another blind bend

Munnar is a former colonial hill station in tea country, with the world's highest altitude tea plantations and one of the world's most exclusive clubs. I consider going there for a G & T in the male-only bar. But I can't. They admit guests, but don't allow over the threshold anyone in sandals. Unfortunately I threw away my shoes in Cochin. On arrival in town I hand myself over to the mercy of a tuk-tuk driver who takes me on a tour of the cheaper hotels and homestays until at the sixth attempt we locate an acceptable and affordable one. More on Mummar tomorrow.