Friday 4th January
The day started off early, as Anja and
I got up to watch the sunrise over the edge of the park where we were
staying. There was the usual heavy mist rolling over the grasslands
and the forest, but little sign of any wildlife except for a few
birdswho treated us to a dawn chorus. The various chirping and
singing was very atmospheric, and it would have been even more
pleasant without the additional racket coming from the town where,
for whatever reason, a loudspeaker was blaring out a musical din.
Most things are done at maximum volume in India, even at 6am.
Anja was moving on to Madurai in the
neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, while I was staying in Kumily for
an extra day, so we said goodbye to each other and I set off to sign
up for a tour of the tea and spice plantations that represent the
major resources in the area. I booked on to the tour and went in
search of another place to stay for the night, finding an even better
guesthouse, at a cheaper price, than the place we stayed in over the
previous two nights.
After lunch, I took the tour, and was
the only person on this one orgnanised by the official local tourist
office. My guide took me first to a tea plantation, with the tea
plants blanketing the hills on all sides. We moved on to the
Connemara Tea Factory, where we saw the process of tea-making from
start to finish, and it was very interesting to see how the
production line works in its various stages. The factory apparently
took its name from a British landowner who opened the place in 1941,
although I didn't get to the bottom of exactly why it was named after
the place in the west of Ireland.
We took a trip to a local spice
plantation where I was introduced to the plants from which everyday
spices come from: cardamom, cinnamon, bay, cocoa, vanilla, etc.
Finally, I was shown around a show garden which housed the many
plants used in the production of ayurvedic treatments and medecines
that are common to Kerala.
By the end of the tour, I was starting
to get tired, too tired to care about which plant did what. I was
also rather sceptical of some of the treatments that I had been
introduced to by the very informative guide (e.g. putting a
particular leaf on a child's head at night to prevent it from
coughing and so enabling it to sleep better!). I grabbed some food at
the only decent place in the area in which I was staying, crashing
out shortly after. I was intending to get an early night ahead of an
early start to my journey south to Varkala Beach the next day.
