Tea Leaves and Backwaters

When I came to India everyone told me I had to go to Karela. On Saturday I got to go there and it was amazing. I woke up Saturday morning before I had even gone to bed for the night and went to the airport to board a plane for Cochin. I flew on Kingfisher Air which was actually pretty nice, and the flight was just over an hour. I was impressed with the domestic airport except that they frisk everyone. The women at least get to go into a frisking booth and be frisked by another woman. The men have to stand in the open for everyone to watch. The Cochin airport was nice and our bags came almost before we got to the carousal. My coworker Melissa was with me so gratefully I was not by myself. Our driver was waiting outside with a sign that said "Miss Candi Crawford." They all seem to call me Candi here. That's Candy, not CandI. Our driver was really nice. He had big eyes with really long eyelashes. His English wasn't great, but we got by. We went on our way to Munnar where we were staying at the Tea County Hotel for the night. The hotel was only 60 km from the airport, but it took us 3 hours to get there. We drove through small villages and mountains which is why it took so long. It rained off and on the entire time, which actually turned out to be a blessing because it created waterfalls all over. The waterfalls were amazing. Some of them were small, running over the rocks, but most of them were huge and just beautiful. Driving through all of the fields growing tea leaves was also incredible. We saw animals indiginous to the land. Melissa saw an elephant and I saw a house cat. Everything was so green and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I know my sister Kate may not believe it, but it was even comparable to New Zealand in beauty. We finally got to the hotel and checked in. The hotel reminded me of a little French Villa. It was beautiful. Our driver took us out sightseeing through Munnar. We went to a national park which was full of the same incredible scenery. The rain continued to pour. We went to a tea factory where we learned how they make tea. It was pretty interesting to see the process of starting with green leaves and ending up with brown tea grounds. We also went to a damn. I'm not sure of the significance of the damn, it was beautiful though. Melissa and I started to walk across the damn, but turned around because my pants were wet up to my knees because it was raining so hard. We went back to the hotel, ate dinner and went to sleep for the night. I could hear the rain as I went to sleep and it was not like any rain I had heard before. It came down in sheets.

The next morning our driver came back to the hotel and we left Munnar on our way to Alleppy. It was another 4 hours to Alleppy and we ran into our elephant friend again. He didn't seem threatening so I got pretty close to take a picture. Alleppy is very close to the western coast of India so the weather was a bit more humid there, but it wasn't raining so I was grateful. We went to a place they call the Backwaters. We got on a houseboat which was originally a cargo boat. Our 3-man crew consisted of the captain, a cook and an engineer. They were all fantastic. We started on our trek through the backwaters, which turned out to be a large network of wide rivers running through Alleppy. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. People live all along the river and it is their livlihood. They bathe, wash their clothes, wash their dishes, drink - all from the river. Melissa and I were a bit concerned when we discovered the dishes we ate from on the houseboat were also washed in the river, but I'm pretty sure I already have a parasite so I thought he might appreciate the bacteria. We docked and got in a small canoe to go in places the large houseboat could not go. A large gang of young boys from the village swarmed around us and asked for a pen or an American coin. They were so cute and I felt terrible I didn't have anything to give them. We canoed through the village and saw what an incredible life these people live. They are farmers and fishers and everything is so simple. We got back on the houseboat and docked soon after to eat dinner and sleep for the night. The food was actually really good, which was a nice change. I told Melissa it would only make the whole experience more perfect if we saw fireworks. Not 10 minutes later we heard a huge bank and far away on the horizon we saw fireworks. It was incredible. I don't know what they were for, but it was perfect.

The next morning we went back to the original dock very early where our driver was waiting for us to take us back to the airport. We said farewell to the crew and traveled about 90 minutes to the airport to fly back to Bangalore. The whole weekend was just wonderful. Everything was so beautiful and so much slower and more peaceful than Bangalore. It was amazing to see how the people in those villages live. If I were to live in India, I would definitely live in Karela.