As we headed towards Kumily into the mountains regions of Kerala, we realized why people had been to insistent we make our way down to this gorgeous region. It is nothing like the images I had ever conjured up in my mind when imagining travel here. The forest is lush. The roads are small, windy and quiet (although there still seems to be ample use of horns). The drive up to Kumily from Alleppey is 
about 4 hours but not nearly as many kilometers as you may think you can cover in that time. Did I mention the windy roads? Contrary to what I would have guessed, nobody got car sick (even during our rotating shifts into the very back) and we made it in one piece. The strategy for driving these small roads in Indian mountain territory is like this; drive as fast as you can, pass on blind hills & corners and sound your horn as loud as you can in case there is any oncoming traffic and/or if you want the guy in front of you to move over. The talent for this method lurks somewhere between talent and luck but we tried not to think too hard about it and enjoy our scenery.
Our trusty driver’s name was Sandosh, it took us about 3 days to get his name right every time. His English was terrible. He answered most of our questions with a head bobble, nod and “yes” regardless of what we asked. But, before long and with a lot of patience (on both sides) we eventually figured out how to communicate. He was a good guy and a good driver although I would recommend to anyone looking for a driver to find one that you can better communicate with. I think we missed out on a few things because he didn’t know how to download the information to us. Oh, and he looked like our friend Ken Walton’s Indian twin brother, seriously. It freaked me out every time I looked at him. It cost us about CAN$30/day to hire Sandosh and drive max 80km per day. We arranged accommodation at homestays separately. For five people, it was a great way to go and I have to say, I would not have wanted to negotiate those roads on a bus or behind the wheel myself! Yikes.
Kumily was fabulous. It is a hub of spice farms and trekking adventures. There is also a National Park there with lots of elephants and tigers although animal sightings within the park are rare. We stayed at a place called Pepper County.
A lovely couple, Dolly & Cyriac, built a new home 3 years ago to celebrate their son’s marriage, and make room for the newlyweds to live with them. The son and his wife have since moved to England so mom and dad have turned their home into a homestay. It was clean and quiet which was perfect for our 3 night stay. Once again however we found meals a bit uncomfortable. Seems rather than pulling up a chair to join you, the custom is to serve the meal and hover while standing at the side of your chairs.
Kumily is kind of a sleepy little town, or perhaps seemed even more so then being low season. One of my fondest memories is finding the government liquor store. A small counter behind bars and with a little cage window, it only opens briefly every day and draws a line-up of all men. It was hilarious seeing Ron, token white guy lining up to buy our
2 bottles of beer. You receive your goods wrapped in newspaper and if you have one, hide it quickly under your lunghi (long coloured wrap) as you walk away. Ron has yet to embrace the local garb (although he did buy a striped purple number in Goa he CLAIMS was just a way to give a nice local woman some business) so he had to leave with his head held high and bottles in full view.
We toured a spice farm and hiked from our guest house up to a small peak. The hike took us through villages nestled into the hillside. Walking through is a much better way of seeing the way of life; the guy driving his cart up with the catch of the day in the back for sale, laundry (of course), a tiny school, more laundry, men chopping huge lengths of hard wood and lots of crops like pepper, cardamom and fruit. The viewpoint, adorned by a huge white cross, was home to a grazing cow and shepherdess and offered an amazing view of the valley.
We’ve learned lots about spice farms but I won’t bore you with the tutorial. We do know that pepper is the “King” of spices and Cardamom the “Queen”. The gardens are beautiful and so lush. It’s hard to stay in a valley town without the desire to climb up a peak or two. The weather in Kumily was fabulous with cool evenings (we at least got to pull out one or two warmer garments we’ve been lugging around since Cape Town) and warm days. We completely lucked out with no rain. We drove into the park with the plan to go on the boat ride around the damned lake. We were easily swayed by the long line-ups to change plans and go on “The Cloud Walk” starting at a different entrance. The deal is, trekking so soon after the monsoon season means you will find leaches on the trails. We had read this and been avoiding the concept. We were lured by the walk though, described as a 3 hour hike offering amazing views and the chance to see elephants. The guide handed us gaiter socks to wear inside our shoes, and up to our knees confirming we would find leaches. Not only was it a fashion faux pas, but we had not told the girls about the possibility of leaches thinking we would avoid them all together. With a big gulp, we headed off.
The climb up was about an hour and we didn’t see one leach. We could see for miles and miles in all directions once we got to the top and climbed a rickety observation tower. The first part of the walk was through dense jungle full of the most amazing trees, plants and flowers. Our guide stooped constantly to pick leaves and tell us of their various natural healing powers. The alpine was wading through waist high grasses. We descended back down on a different trail where we DID find the leaches. They were tiny but as soon as you stopped, even for a second (and I still think they grabbed on to us at full speed), they were crawling up our shoes and gaiters. Yuck. The latter part of our hike involved stops every 100 m or so to do a leach check and like the monkeys in the trees, pluck them off each other. We were proud of the girls, they took this in stride with only a few shrieks (my shrieks were all in my head) it was pretty gross.
about 4 hours but not nearly as many kilometers as you may think you can cover in that time. Did I mention the windy roads? Contrary to what I would have guessed, nobody got car sick (even during our rotating shifts into the very back) and we made it in one piece. The strategy for driving these small roads in Indian mountain territory is like this; drive as fast as you can, pass on blind hills & corners and sound your horn as loud as you can in case there is any oncoming traffic and/or if you want the guy in front of you to move over. The talent for this method lurks somewhere between talent and luck but we tried not to think too hard about it and enjoy our scenery.Our trusty driver’s name was Sandosh, it took us about 3 days to get his name right every time. His English was terrible. He answered most of our questions with a head bobble, nod and “yes” regardless of what we asked. But, before long and with a lot of patience (on both sides) we eventually figured out how to communicate. He was a good guy and a good driver although I would recommend to anyone looking for a driver to find one that you can better communicate with. I think we missed out on a few things because he didn’t know how to download the information to us. Oh, and he looked like our friend Ken Walton’s Indian twin brother, seriously. It freaked me out every time I looked at him. It cost us about CAN$30/day to hire Sandosh and drive max 80km per day. We arranged accommodation at homestays separately. For five people, it was a great way to go and I have to say, I would not have wanted to negotiate those roads on a bus or behind the wheel myself! Yikes.
Kumily was fabulous. It is a hub of spice farms and trekking adventures. There is also a National Park there with lots of elephants and tigers although animal sightings within the park are rare. We stayed at a place called Pepper County.
A lovely couple, Dolly & Cyriac, built a new home 3 years ago to celebrate their son’s marriage, and make room for the newlyweds to live with them. The son and his wife have since moved to England so mom and dad have turned their home into a homestay. It was clean and quiet which was perfect for our 3 night stay. Once again however we found meals a bit uncomfortable. Seems rather than pulling up a chair to join you, the custom is to serve the meal and hover while standing at the side of your chairs.Kumily is kind of a sleepy little town, or perhaps seemed even more so then being low season. One of my fondest memories is finding the government liquor store. A small counter behind bars and with a little cage window, it only opens briefly every day and draws a line-up of all men. It was hilarious seeing Ron, token white guy lining up to buy our
2 bottles of beer. You receive your goods wrapped in newspaper and if you have one, hide it quickly under your lunghi (long coloured wrap) as you walk away. Ron has yet to embrace the local garb (although he did buy a striped purple number in Goa he CLAIMS was just a way to give a nice local woman some business) so he had to leave with his head held high and bottles in full view.We toured a spice farm and hiked from our guest house up to a small peak. The hike took us through villages nestled into the hillside. Walking through is a much better way of seeing the way of life; the guy driving his cart up with the catch of the day in the back for sale, laundry (of course), a tiny school, more laundry, men chopping huge lengths of hard wood and lots of crops like pepper, cardamom and fruit. The viewpoint, adorned by a huge white cross, was home to a grazing cow and shepherdess and offered an amazing view of the valley.
We’ve learned lots about spice farms but I won’t bore you with the tutorial. We do know that pepper is the “King” of spices and Cardamom the “Queen”. The gardens are beautiful and so lush. It’s hard to stay in a valley town without the desire to climb up a peak or two. The weather in Kumily was fabulous with cool evenings (we at least got to pull out one or two warmer garments we’ve been lugging around since Cape Town) and warm days. We completely lucked out with no rain. We drove into the park with the plan to go on the boat ride around the damned lake. We were easily swayed by the long line-ups to change plans and go on “The Cloud Walk” starting at a different entrance. The deal is, trekking so soon after the monsoon season means you will find leaches on the trails. We had read this and been avoiding the concept. We were lured by the walk though, described as a 3 hour hike offering amazing views and the chance to see elephants. The guide handed us gaiter socks to wear inside our shoes, and up to our knees confirming we would find leaches. Not only was it a fashion faux pas, but we had not told the girls about the possibility of leaches thinking we would avoid them all together. With a big gulp, we headed off.
The climb up was about an hour and we didn’t see one leach. We could see for miles and miles in all directions once we got to the top and climbed a rickety observation tower. The first part of the walk was through dense jungle full of the most amazing trees, plants and flowers. Our guide stooped constantly to pick leaves and tell us of their various natural healing powers. The alpine was wading through waist high grasses. We descended back down on a different trail where we DID find the leaches. They were tiny but as soon as you stopped, even for a second (and I still think they grabbed on to us at full speed), they were crawling up our shoes and gaiters. Yuck. The latter part of our hike involved stops every 100 m or so to do a leach check and like the monkeys in the trees, pluck them off each other. We were proud of the girls, they took this in stride with only a few shrieks (my shrieks were all in my head) it was pretty gross.
We didn’t see one elephant but we saw tracks and marks in the forest they had left behind. Actually, this was ok if not better. The guide was full of information. Besides, we were not sure what exactly it would feel like meeting an elephant on the trail. Seeing them from a vehicle in Africa seemed a little safer!
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