From Tea To Spirituali-Tea

Ok, So I lied in one of my earlier posts when I said, I would cover my South India trip in two segments. I am going to do it in three. The five day trip was so happening that a couple of posts won't and don't do justice. Also, since I decided to make it a phlog (photo-blog), the previous two posts, got really long and IMHO got a tad outta hand to keep the reader hooked. I will try to wrap things up here and spare the readers. I am going to take you all on a journey from the land of tea to the land of spirituality.

A worker at the tea plantations

With the hope of making it to our evening flight out of Cochin covering as much as possible, we started our Friday early. The original plan was to start early at 6.30 am, visit Eravikulam National Park for couple of hours, have brunch in Munnar, see Attukal waterfall and Spice Gardens, then head towards Cochin and stop at Kalady on the way.

Due to some logistical fiasco on the previous day, we couldn't start that early and had to skip Eravikulam. We hit the road at 8.30 am and drove into town of Munnar to hit Sarvana Bhavan for the morning breakfast. After the pet-pooja (that's a desi slang for eating), we headed towards Attukal water-falls. 2 kms away from the water-fall, we stopped; there it was - right in front of us in all its magnificence. A clear large stream of water jumping down with full-force into the tea-valley below. A couple of pictures later in the interest of time, we decided to abort the visit and turned back towards Adimaly in the hope of spending more time at the Spice Gardens.

We made it to the Spice Gardens (these are right after one leaves the town of Adimaly) around 10.30-11.00 to be welcomed by our tour guide with a lot of enthusiasm and warmth. He was very informative and knowledgeable and also eager to learn names of various spices in Marathi and other languages.

Cardamom

We saw a variety of spices, from the common-place ones like ginger, cloves, cardamom, and pepper to the exotic ones like nut-meg, ajwain; the place had it all. There were also the beverage garnishes like cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, almond etc. We were treated to some ponsettia, some bonsai pineapples, bananas, oranges and the likes.

After taking a walk thru' the garden for almost some 3 quarters of an hour, we were introduced to the literal mistress of spices. The Bachhan Bahu can feel jealous; this one was genuine. She was the gardener, the care-taker, and the de-facto marketer of the produce of these gardens. This lady was sweet, homely, and communicated with us in Malayalam with a broken English touch. She was so convinced that we could understand her, and spoke with extreme zeal that none of us had the heart of pointing it to her that she was lost in translation. She explained all the products she had; the herbs, the spices in excruciating detail from their use to their seasonal availabilities. I think we ended up getting some Vetiver body scrubs from her in addition to an assorted spice basket.

Bonsai Pineapple

The spice gardens were our final stop-over in the Nilgiri hills; we wanted to get back to Cochin in time for our flight and more importantly early enough to have time to visit Kalady. Kalady is the birthplace of Adi Shankara. Shankara [788 CE - 820 CE] was one of the key medieval saints of Hinduism; a leading proponent of the Advaita philosophy of Vedanta. I am not going to dwell too much on his life and his works; but the foundation of four mathas (peethams) based on the four canonical Sanhitas; the four Vedas definitely deserves a mention. For the curious reader, wikipedia has a comprehensive bio on him.

What I would instead encourage readers of the blog to do; is to make a trip to Kalady and these four peethams. Kalady, the janmabhoomi of Adi Shankara is a very holy place for the Hindus; the birthplace of the foremost Gurus of monistic system of Hindu philosophy. His proposed central tenets of Vedantic philosophy; more specifically Advaita, were later propagated and followed by great philosophers and spiritual leaders of modern India like Ramakrishna Parmahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Vinayak Savarkar. While at the Janmabhoomi sthan, we worshipped at the Sapta Devi temple (I don't remember the names of the Devis :( ), a Ganesh temple, Shankara's janma sthanam, and the Samadhi sthan of Aryamba (Shankara's mother). There is a lamp post right next to Aryamba's samadhi which dates back to Shankara's time. This lamp post served as a key archaelogical evidence to identify that Shankara's birth place was indeed Kalady.

Outside of the confines of the Janma sthanam, less than a mile away right across from the bus-station is the Adi Shankara Keerti Stambha. This is an exquisite structure which portrays Shanakara's life pictorially. We knew very little about Shankara's life and his work and these beautiful murals went a long way to enlighten the ignoramuses within us.

Spiritually soothed and culturally enriched, we left Cochin for Aamchi Mumbai...

Lovers For Tea And Tea For Lovers

Munnar, etymologically the place of confluence of three (munu) rivers (aaru) is a hilly town in the Idukki district of Kerala. With its sprawling tea estates, beautiful rivers videre licet Muthirappuzha, Nallathanni and Kundaly, beautiful spice gardens, dams, water-falls, and national reserves, Munnar boasts of an entire spectrum of nature.

View Enroute Thekkady Road From Munnar

Taking the train from KK, we reached Ernakulam by noon. After waiting on our pick-up for almost an hour, and after atleast half a dozen vociferous phone conversations, we managed to find Shaji - who would be our driver-und-guide for the next three days. Shaji was a Kerali Christian, who couldn't speak anything much beyond Malayalam. His English was passable and his Hindi better than his English...Imagine that. We would often communicate in Hinglish and cause each other exasperation. Over the three days there were quite some funny moments, trying to overcome the linguistic hurdles.

After a good lunch at seemingly upscale restaurant called Dwarka (or something similar), we headed towards Munnar. En route, we stopped at Kothamangalam for some coffee, and began our drive into the Nilgiri night. After a good 6 hours of driving from Cochin, we finally reached Munnar's Hotel Silver Cloud. The hotel was more of a set of honeymoon suites (or at-least that's the general feeling I got) located right across from Fort Munnar some 15 odd miles beyond the town of Munnar en route towards Thekkady. The drive at night was scary with the ghat roads being very narrow at times allowing only for a single vehicle to pass. With the windows rolled down however, one could smell the exotic spices, and tea aromas while driving thru' the beautiful country.

The hotel was ill-staffed and although the host there was very humble and cordial, things were slow as far as service was concerned. After waiting on our dinner for almost 2 hours, we finally slept off at midnight. The next morning after a breakfast of Idlis and Appam, we started our sight-seeing expedition. On our way to the town of Munnar, we made arrangements for the famed Kerala Ayurvedic massage to get rid of our travel-fatigue.

The beautiful sunny morning came out with a clear message - Munnar is a place for "Lovers". Honeymooners, newly married folks, married folks trying to re-ignite the sparks, families who love each other, nature lovers, lovers of tea, everyone can come here and have a great time.

Periakanal Water Falls

A touristy stop by the Periakanal Water Falls (aka Power House Water Falls??) on the way to the town; we were treated to honeymooners posing in a myriad different romantic ways each wanting their share of shutter-time under these falls. A few clicks down, we hurried our way into the heart of the town leaving behind the Sita Devi lake and Attukal waterfalls as To-Do items for the next day.

A quick swing by the KTDC office and we had all the maps and materials needed to prioritize our visit. We started off by a trip to the Tea Museum. Here, visitors are treated to a good 45 minute long presentation video about the history of tea plantations in Munnar. The video talks about how the tea plantations and the development around them has helped Munnar flourish as a tourist and a commercial town, yet maintaining the sanctity of the nature in this area.

Tea slopes near the Lockhart Gap

The Kannan Devan Hills Plantation is the single largest tea company in the area previously owned by the British traders and then handed over as a privately owned company largely owned by the workers in the plantations.

Water Lily at the Tea Museum

The legacy was then handed over to the Tatas who rejuvenated the industry until finally handing the reigns over to the workers who make this all happen. So today as it stands, the KDHP is a flourishing privately owned tea business (majorly owned by its workers).


Spending almost a couple of hours at the tea museum, understanding the tea-making process , and a live demonstration later, we headed for some much needed lunch. The meal of the day was a Gujarati thali (yes yes yes Gujarati thali in Munnar) with a variety of offerings including theplas, khichadi, kadhi and other traditional gujju fanfare. It was a welcome change for our now southie stomachs. The afternoon was spent visiting Kundala and Mattupetty dams.

Kundala Dam

These are very picturesque locations a true shutter-bugs' delights; each offering a plenty of romance.

Wide-Angle View Of Kundala Dam

Although we didn't do the boat-rides (thought that was the honeymooners-only activity), we had plenty of glimpses of the water nearby...

Cloud covered silver mountains, clear blue waters, beautiful green trees and perfect temperatures to go with; the afternoon excursion was totally worth it.

Mattupetty Dam

The evening was spent lazing around in the beautiful flower gardens of Munnar. For the life of me, I can't recollect the name of this garden. I kept correlating the flora in this garden to the famous Duke Gardens in Durham all the time I was there. The flowers were beautiful, vivid and fresh. God has indeed blessed this place with weather and nature that very few other places exhibit.

Flora at Flower Garden

After enjoying the flora for about an hour, we started our way back towards our hotel. Snacks were enjoyed at Saravana Bhavan (in Munnar) in the classic south-indian style. Sated by the delicacies, yet tired from the day's sight-seeing, we were looking forward to our evening massage appointment. We reached the place at dusk amid some i-dunno-where-it-came-from rain. It was a decent down-pour which had forced the power to be shut-off. The ambient light emanating from oil-lamps and healthy scents of the various massage oils set the scene for a relaxing massage. The full-body ayurvedic massage was a heavenly experience; needless to say its amongst the few must-dos in Kerala.

We retired for the night after a homely dinner of tomato-rice, curd-rice, and rassam. The spicy details await us the next day...

The Postcard(s) That Reached Late

Sifar is back to his figurative third place. The aroma of cappucino and the soothing lounge music never fails to release the right chemicals to actuate blogging. In my vain attempt to maintain a blog continuity, and to keep my promise to write about the rest of my India trip, I am going to take you to god's own country with me (in a short series of two posts). Wow, that did NOT come out right. I almost sounded like the archangel, St. Michael, from above, ready to carry a soul separated from its body to St. Peter's gates. For those curious about the mythology of the orient, I sounded like "Yamadoot".

Any how, by god's own country I mean Kerala. The entire state is very beautiful, clean, and well maintained by the government and more importantly, the locals. During this year's annual pilgrimage to India, I insisted on experiencing the vibrant cultural fabric of India than just spending time home lazing around. With that brain-wave, began the planning to visit Kanyakumari and Munnar. We landed at Trivandrum by an early morning flight from Mumbai and after spending a very short time flirting with the beautiful clear waters of the Kovalam beach, headed to KK. One thing to clarify here (which never occured to me before visiting KK) is that KK is actually in Tamil Nadu and not Kerala. After checking into our hotel in KK, we had a late lunch and headed towards Gandhi Mandapam to watch the sun set.

KK is the southern most tip of India, the land of triveni sangam (the place where three seas/oceans meet), the bhoomi of Kanya Devi, the place of Vivekananda's meditation and memorial, and lastly a touristy place with lots of people. After taking the pulse of the streets of KK and a few good pictures of the sun set from the viewing point, we headed to get some delicious filter coffee that South India is so famous for among other things. Alas, KK is so commercialized now, that the local guys sell Bru and Sunrise for 7/10 bucks a tiny cup and no filter at all.

We also made a walk down towards the temple area, to get a glimpse of the Vivekananda memorial and the Thiruvallavur statues. The calm, serene breeze and the pleasing temperatures provided for a magnificient evening mood that was meditative and introspective. Some places have an aura about them, they just engulf your soul providing for a divine experience - KK is definitely one of them.

After an unsuccessful raid on the filter coffee front, and a good quiet half hour watching the blissful sight of Vivekananda memorial at night and gaping into the open seas ahead of us, we went back to our hotel for dinner and dozed off early to get up at 4.30 am the subsequent morning.

We had our eyes set on getting to watch the rising sun, but the primordial light deprived us of the ecstasy by conspiring with the dark clouds nearby. After a disappointing walk back to the hotel, we got ready and headed towards the KK temple. A couple of hours of hustle bustle among the "Swamis" of Sabrimala, we finally managed to take "darshan" and headed towards the Vivekananda memorial. A word of caution for people trying to visit KK, Dec/Jan are NOT good months to visit, cos the place is full of people doing the Sabrimala pilgrimage. I was hoping that KK would be a relaxing, enlightening experience, but the hordes of crowds made it more of a ruckus for the most part.

Spending two hours or more each in long queues for the ferries at Vivekananda rock and Thiruvallavur statue, we finally made it back by 3.00 pm. The USPs of these two sites were the memorial itself, a large statue of Vivekananda, a quiet meditation room, a sun-dial, and watching the Triveni Sangam (the place where the Bay of Bengal, The Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean meet).

One thing that Kerala has to offer in plenty like any other coastal place, is the sweet coconut water, and we had it aplenty to keep us hydrated thru' the southern heat. After a late lunch and an equally late siesta, we headed to the Suchindram temple which is about 12 kms from KK.

The Suchindram temple is exquisite in its architecture and boasts a 22 feet Hanuman statue made out of a single stone. The temple was humungous and carried loads of beautiful sculptures and idols, each with scrupulous attention towards carvings and art. An abhishek at the hanuman mandir and a few more delightful pictures down, we headed back to KK and stopped at the Vivekananda Ashram on the way. As ill-luck would have it, the ashram wasn't hosting the usual exhibition on Vivekananda's life - we were treated to a sign-board that said "Exhibition closed on Tuesday evenings". Like all other things that we blame on misfortune, we took that in our stride and instead focused on buying some books on spirituality. Tuesday ended with a quiet night at the hotel and early submission to bed to catch the early morning train to Cochin...Munnar here we come.

--Sifar