20/12/2013:-

When I woke, I wasn’t sure if it was dawn already. Because the big tall trees around the guest house covered the entire area from sun light.  The previous night I thought it would just be a small park with a couple of bushes and plant with a single tree, under which we had parked our bikes. It wasn’t the case. They had big trees, small beautiful flowering plants, an open area for camp fire and lot more.

 We got ready and again walked out to find a proper breakfast hotel. It just took an hour to find a suitable breakfast joint again thanks to confusions caused by Google. After breakfast Shaji was ready with his car, but we insisted on taking our bikes because he could drop us and return back while we spent as much time we wanted.

He agreed and drove just ahead of us. After 20 minutes we reached a park where they organized elephant rides and other activities. Shaji left us there with a brief introduction.

There are several such elephant safaris organized around Kumily and Thekady and the reality is I forgot the name of this Elephant Park where we went. They had a variety of activities and packages, Ranging from simple elephant ride, feeding the elephant, Washing the elephant and some more. We chose to just ride on the elephant. I chose to sit at the back, while the fight was on for the front seat. NRI won the fight and Anto had to sit in the middle.

While both tried to push me from the elephant, it was hard for me to hold on to the cart and stick over there. With each step that big animal took, we made a little dance move above it. Abhi gave his mobile to one of the mahouts to take few pictures. As if he was waiting for a chance, the mahout grabbed the phone and started taking photos left and right. He would’ve taken atleast 100 snaps in that 40 minute ride without even wasting a single minute. With all little dance moves, we rode over the coffee plantations around. We were just returning to our childhood and imitating like old kings on these mighty ones.

We landed on the ground and took some snaps with our big friend and spend some time around the plantations. Then the elephant was taken to its resting place, where they washed him before leaving it for taking rest. It lied down on a pool of water and while the mahouts where washing it, using its trunk it took water from a tap next to the pool and drank it. It shows the cleanliness which it maintained. An, elephant wouldn’t just eat anything and everything. I have even seen then wash their grass before eating it when they are in the forest. Similar thing happened here, it was lying on a pool of water and it didn’t even drink a single drop of water from the pool. It chose to drink from the tape which was cleaner.

After spending some time and watching other elephants having their food, we rode to Thekady, The Periyar wildlife sanctuary. We took the entry pass and rode till the permissible area and parked our bikes. The toughest thing now was to safeguard the helmets from our ancestors. Since mine was bit old, I tied it to the crash-guard of the bike and started walking. We walked silently through the thick woods across the people who were posing in front of each tree and bush. They were also making some noises, imitating and showing faces which disturbed the animals. We maintained as much silence as possible. Since Thekady was one of the preferred honey moon destinations in South India, we saw many couples around us. It was a tough time for some cab drivers, whose clients were just married. They had to take photos of their customers, without shaking, with better lights, with good background and what not. Some ladies were in their full adventure clothes, jeans and jackets and also wore Bangles till their Elbow joints, which made them look funnier than they usually were.

We walked till the boat jetty (pier) and sat there for a while to see if we could spot some wild elephants. We waited there for a while and couldn’t get any sight of them. We were satisfied with monkeys and came back to our bikes. Luckily the monkeys had not damaged our helmets, we safely road back to the hotel.

Shaji, told not to miss the Thekady to Munnar road, and told it would be better to ride on that route during the day time. He had also told how lucky we were because the route on which we had travelled the previous day was recently laid. We took his advice, got ready and took the next 100 kilometer stretch to Munnar.

Earlier we had a plan of finishing this stretch in 3 hours, because it was just 100kilometers. Even the roads were very smooth and wide. However some breath taking views didn’t allow us to complete the ride in 3 hours. We had to stop every now and then, especially when we were nearing Munnar. The stretch started with dense forest, with tall old trees on both the sides of the road. We had to cut through some sharp curves and blind U turns. Then we entered some villages, and rode between some narrow stretches and at last came the tea gardens. We were riding just in the middle of acres of Tea plantations.

Abhi and Anto took a de-tour again to fill in petrol. While I was riding ahead of them thinking I was left behind. I took a couple of stops to capture the views through my eyes and camera. When I was told that I am ahead of the other two, I took this as a chance and parked my bike at the most beautiful spot. It was almost the end of the day for the tea estate laborers. The ladies were emptying their basket full of tea leafs at the collection center, where 3 other men stood beside them. Not more than 12-15 ladies stood on the queue with their baskets. They gave their basket to one of the men, who seemed to be youngest of the 3 men.  He placed the leafs on the weighing machine,  and then shifted them to a bigger jute bag which the second guy was holding. The complete process was monitored by another middle aged, decently dressed gentleman who recorded the yield on a register.

The ladies after emptying their baskets jumped off the road and walked rapidly through the Tea plantations to their homes. The other men stood around the filled Jute bags and waited for a collection van to collect them to the factory.

After watching them work for 10-15 minutes, I shifted my sight towards the plantation. It initially looked like someone had just drawn this sketch using a ruler. The plants were so perfectly grown with equal distance from each other. They had small pathways for people to walk through them. The entire slope was evenly cut and had a complete green cover over them. In the meantime Abhi and Anto reached the spot and joined me in taking some snaps for each other.

We found a couple of homestays and resorts over there, but we chose to visit Munnar and then decide about the stay. We rode for almost four and a half hours and we still had another 20 kilometers to ride. There was a tiny waterfall on the way and a view point which was filled with clouds. We didn’t stop too long there because it was also filled with honey moon couples. Abhi still had issue with his head lamp, which was only powering on in high beam mode and he had also missed one of his riding gloves. Now we just had my pair of gloves and one of Abhi’s gloves. I suggested using one for each, however Anto returned my gloves on the way and they both rode without it.

We reached Munnar around 1830hours and started checking for hotels. It was already Friday, and Munnar was getting ready for their usual peak hours of business which is usually during the weekend. I was visiting Munnar after almost 10 years and it portrayed a drastic change. We took our mobiles and checked for hotels. We were just praying to find some stay just like the one we had in Thekady. However we can’t be lucky always. We spent more than 30-40 minutes just to search for a proper place to stay. They either didn’t have any vacant rooms, or they were very costly and not worthy. We rode for few kilometers in search of hotels and most of them had a bus parked in their car parking which gave us a clear indication of no vacancy.

The home stays had also increased their rates seeing the demand for the nearing Christmas weekend. Atlast we found a home stay bit away from the busy town area. Casper cottage was the name. Since we were not able to find the exact location, we asked the care taker to come down to show us the route. We waited near a landmark junction, and all we were able to see ahead was a dark road. Minutes later a lean, dark shadow appeared from the very same road. He was the care taker and he replaced my back pack in the pillion. He asked us to ride on the same dark lane and all of sudden, he asked us to take right. It took a while for me to realize that there was a lane to my right. Then when I took that lane, my bike wouldn’t climb the hill. I struggled a bit and pushed him to first gear and with a roar he moved forward and reached a small dead end.

It was a small hill-top with very few houses on them. Most of them seem to have shared their front portion for home stays and accommodation. Since it was dark, I wasn’t able to completely see how many houses were around. I think there were 3-4 houses with tiny terrace farming in front of their houses. Most of them had a separate guest rooms which they had rented out during peak seasons.

 We got into the cottage and we were surprised by the first looks of the room. It was a tiny room, however good enough to accommodate 3 people. Anto’s head was just inches below the roof, so we asked him to be careful. We had no other option and were tired to go back and check for some other room. We dropped our bags and got fresh. Again there was plenty of hot water.

We took only 2 bikes and rode out in search of dinner. When I had first gone to Munnar, I had awesome Kerala Parotta on a road side shop. I thought of checking that place, for which Anto and Abhi agreed. We went to the central market place and to my surprise that small road side shop wasn’t small any more. It was still on the road side, however bigger than I had thought. They had 3 different carts, one for Idlis, One for Dosa and curries. The other for non-veg curries and Egg dishes. There also was a separate slab for making Kerala Parotta. The entire set-up was under a huge tent, which they remove it after the business over. We ordered parcels, and I stood beside the cashier and started chatting with him.

“Since when are you running this business?” I asked. He wasn’t really willing to answer at the first shot. Either he was busy taking care of the omelets or he thought I was a government official questioning him. “I think I had been here almost 10 years back” I added.

“We have been running this business for almost 30 years now!!” He answered. It made clear that he was not the one who is worried about any government official. “People come from various parts of the country and even upload our photos in Facebook”, He said.

Since he had already had some much of publicity, and we were not much interested we didn’t take any picture around that place. We returned back to our rooms. The silent lanes and deep dark forest view from the balcony raised our temptations to sit there for some time. It was very cold outside; still we sat on the balcony and were discussing things on a low voice, because it was a silent residential locality. After a while, with dogs singing lullabies at a distance, we went inside the room and started snoring.