The Original Harmony

Monday:

We left the hotel at about 7:10 and got to the airports by 7:30. With a 10:25 flight this was more than enough time but we weren't sure how things were gong to go at the airport, and we figured better safe than sorry. The flight was just two hours with 5 minutes in a holding pattern for "unplanned air force activity".

It was hot when we landed in Kochi. The tour company was the waiting for us with a sign for Mr. Timothy Hawes, and handed me a bouquet of roses. This as funny and strange; Kelly did all the tour booking, including the payment direct from her account, but it still was all in my name. This wasn't too surprising though, as we've come to expect these sorts of attitudes towards women from most people.

Our first stop in the tour of Kerala was Munnar. The ride in was amazingly beautiful. Down near the coast coconut palms dominate the landscape, but they grow pineapple, rubber, banana, casava, papaya, jackfruit, and other tropicals. Soon we were winding up into the mountains. And I really mean winding too; we're talking hair pin turns on a single lane road. Bridges barely wide enough for one vehicle. Sheer cliffs. Passing oncoming traffic usually requires one of the vehicles to stop and pull over if possible. Fortunately the drivers play it pretty safe keeping it slow, making full use of the horn and actually stopping the car to take calls. The ups and downs, left and rights for 5 hours though take their toll, even an iron stomach will have a hard time keeping it together.

As we went up, the climate started to change and the vegitation along with it. Soon the fruit crops started to give way to timber, spices and tea...a lot of tea. According to our guide a total of 59,000 acres had been planted there. The tea aside, our San Diego friends might actually find parts of this landscape oddly familiar with the jaccadan and eucalyptus groves. The similarities to anything I've seen before end there though. We were at about the same altitude as home, 5,500 ft. The landscape was stunning, high peaks, deep valleys, all covered in the bright green of new tea leaves, spotted with massive black cliffs and the car to building sized bolders those cliffs had dropped. With the altitude, the temperature is nicely moderated, were not sure what it is here, but it is extremely comfortable.

Since we got to the hotel fairly late, we just had dinner, stayed up a little bit then went to bed.