kerala day 3

Day 3

I had a good night’s sleep in the tree house.  I took a shower and tried to get warmed up in the hot water, but there wasn’t an actual shower head, just one of the hose things.  When I opened my contact solution it popped and hissed.  Andrea laughed because I said “oh”  - it surprised me.  I hadn’t realized we had changed that much in altitude.  When Andrea got done with her shower I heard a loud noise, she screamed, then started laughing.  Apparently the talcum powder had issues with the altitude too and basically exploded when she opened it- the bottle shot across the room and sprayed powder everywhere.

We had a wonderful breakfast of omelets, toasts and Indian “crepes”.   We walked around the resort and Zach found a lizard.  I told the group I would approve the lizard to come with us (as opposed to the puppy) but they left him in the weeds.

 We took the very bumpy jeep ride down to the town of Munnar so Zach could find an internet café so he could take his quiz for his college class.  Nancy went with me to go to the hospital for my second rabies shot.  The hospital was open air and all of the hallways were outside.  Indian hospitals kind of remind me of the military hospital they showed in the movie Ben Affleck was in - Pearl Harbor.  We went to reception and they directed me to go to casualty.  We wait for about 10-15 minutes.  I pay the nurse 60 rupees and she sends me to the pharmacy.  We wait in line there and I pay 349 rupees for the medicine, then we wait in another line and I pay 10 rupees for someone to inject the vaccine.  Each of these stops requires papers filled out and signed.  Indians love their repetitive paper work.  I guess it provides jobs?  I can’t wait to have to have to do this again at a Mumbai hospital on Friday!  At least it only took about an hour and cost less than $10.

We drove along curvy country roads to see a dam at a beautiful site.  Zach got a head messager at the stalls along the dam.  It has curvy metal spikes and you put in on the top of someone’s head and push down and pull up.  We took turns massaging each other’s head.  The driver didn’t like it at first, but then I saw him use it on himself J  Poinsettia trees grow all around here and are in full bloom now. 

We saw a huge snake on the side of the road and it made Zach very happy!  We went to an Elephant park and I got to ride an elephant!!!  Nancy and Andrea have already done it but Zach and I were really looking forward to it!  They are such beautiful beasts.  Andrea let me ride up front which was a little scary when we headed downhill and I pitched forward.  We were really high off the ground and the guide looked really tiny.  We didn’t get to walk far, but I did pay 100 rupees to feed the elephant pineapples and corn.  He raised his trunk up to me and I leaned over and fed him.  He was very agile with that tusk – he didn’t drop anything even though I did not do a good job of handing it to him.

We went to Eravikulam National park and ran into the people who had eaten breakfast with us in Kochi J  there were tons of signs in the park about it being a plastic free zone, then sold cashews in plastic and water bottles.  Weird. 

 National Parks in India have two fares – one for Indians and one for foreigners.  Sometimes we can get in for the Indian price if we show our FRRO cards (resident cards).  We sent Andrea up to negotiate because she can sell ice to an Eskimo, but there was no swaying this guy.  We had read that Kerala is the first state in the world to be a Communist state in a non-communist country.  We noticed lots of things that were different in Kerala opposed to our home state of Maharashtra.  First of all we saw no signs of extreme poverty – no shanty towns, no beggars, nobody sleeping in the streets.  You can hear public announcements over loud speakers in town.  (Andrea said it was similar in Cuba).  Shops are open only as long as the government allows.  Access to state parks is limited.  In this particular park we walked partway up and then there was a guard and a gate that said we couldn’t go farther.  When we asked why, we were told “because that is all the government allows”.  You aren’t allowed to walk off the roads or trek through the interesting parts of the park L  In Maharashtra you see Indian flags everywhere, but you don’t see that here.  I saw red ones and was told they were communist flags from Russia.  The hills around Munnar are carpeted in tea plants. TATA owns all of it. Communism at its finest. I am assuming they sell it to Lipton, Snapple, etc because this is where a good portion of the world’s tea is grown. The tea fields are beautiful and they are harvested all year long.  People go out and pick tea from an area and then do it a week later when new leaves have grown.  Another thing that separates Kerala because it is Communist – women are much higher ranked here.  They hold a lot of the jobs which you don’t see in Mumbai. 
I looked it up and this is what i found In 1957 Kerala became the first state in the world (with the exception of the Italian principality of San Marino) to form a democratically elected communist government. In 1970 Kerala became the first state in India to abolish landlordism. Kerala is presently a democratic state, and is still under Marxist control.  I'm not sure what reality is but we saw no Indian flags - only communist flags and it sure seemed communist.

Zach has a habit of starting sentences with “BJ, I’ll give you 100 rupees if you….”  100 rs is about $2.25 and the bets usually involve me jumping off of things, eating something disgusting, or chasing tigers, elephants, wild boar, or snakes out of the forest so he can see them.  Basically he’s trying to get me killed.  But he did save my life when a bee landed on my neck so … I guess I’ll stay friends with him J  He lies a lot too so we don’t generally believe him.  We had to come up with a “safe word” so we would know when there is real danger and he isn’t lying. Our driver probably wonders why we say “pickle” so often.

We drove back to the bottom of the hill that our tree house hotel is on and waited for the jeep to pick us up.  And waited. And waited.  We entertained ourselves by asking each other riddles, playing “green glass door” and Zach was drawing inappropriate pictures on the windshield fog.  We pile into the jeep with a driver and another man.  The driver seemed ok – at least we didn’t plummet to our deaths in the pouring rain.  But the other man was high. As. A. kite.  We joke all the time that you could grow serious marijuana here amongst all the tea and spices.  This guy must have mixed the weed with something though because he was out of control!!  The others kept saying “BJ you have to put this in your blog.”  There is no way mere words could give any reader the full experience.  He was giggling at everything.  He meowed.  He barked.  He cooed like a baby.  He sang.  He told jokes.  He talked about Mr. Bean.  We were laughing hysterically all the way up the hill which helped alleviates the frustration of having to wait for the jeep for over an hour.  We got to dinner and they served more Indian food.  It was good, but I am not someone who can eat Indian food for every meal for days on end.  And they had no ice cream – only some Indian dessert that looked like worms. 

I am starting to get a cold so I took some benedryll and slept like a baby.