I
have a childhood memory of battered African busses speeding crookedly, along
rural roads with clouds of dust billowing out behind them. The roof luggage
rack packed with bundles, boxes, goats, chickens, bicycles, plants, bits of
furniture and zinc baths. Passengers squashed inside, travelling to a variety
of destinations. I took a five hour
bumpy bus trip from Fort Kochin in Kerela in Southern India
to Munnar in a similar dilapidated, faded rust coloured bus that moved
crab-like on bald tyres. There was no
glass in the windows. There were many stops along the way. We had to stop at
one village where a tug of war competition was being held in the main road.
Between bouts, traffic was allowed to move one direction at a time, through the
village.
Munnar
is in the tea estates in the mountains and the scenery on the way there was
very beautiful. We drove past green forests with very tall trees, streams and
waterfalls cascading down huge rocks. The narrow road with many hairpin bends,
wound on and up through the mountains.
Wheezing around a sharp corner we met two busses coming down the
mountain. Our bus had to reverse to allow the two descending busses to pass. We
were on the edge of a huge drop down the mountain. The conductor, a thin surly
man in a neatly pressed khaki uniform, stood at the back of the bus and guided
the driver by ringing the passenger bell in a
series of coded rings!!!! He had clearly
done this before. Quite a hair raising experience to say the least.
This is the same type of bus that took me to Munnar.
In Fort KochinI stayed at Saj Home. I highly recommend this home stay. Ali Sadiq the ever cheerful and very helpful proprietor spent seventeen years working in the hotel industry in Dubai.
His home stay is very well run and the breakfasts that his wife prepares are sublime!!
Saj Home
Munnar
Tea Estate
In Munnar I stayed at Dew Drops Inn, a guest house, twenty kilometers from Munnar in a forest setting.
Sandalwood Forest, Munnar.
