In lieu of quality wandering opportunities close to home lately, I’ve opted to refer back a couple of years to a trip I made with a group of friends to India. We made good use of our time there, exploring many areas of this beautiful country, so I’ll be including more photos with this post than I normally do. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed exploring such a beautiful and varied country!
We began our wanderings in the southwest of India, exploring Kerala. The photo here was taken during a walk several of us took in the countryside around Munnar. The area was lush and green, and abundant birdlife could be found all around. The town itself was bustling, but the outskirts, such as this area, were fairly quiet and very peaceful, with wooded hills surrounding us in every direction. It was a lovely start to our visit, and we took our time strolling along the paths we found here.
From Munnar we drove through the Kerala countryside taking in acre after acre of tea plantations, rocky cliffs streaked with glittering waterfalls, rushing hillsides covered with trees. It was almost a visual overload, and we were all spellbound. This photo depicts one of the many tea plantations we passed or visited during our stay. They are quite impressive. Along the road that bordered this plantation we met a woman picking up trash. She was the only person we saw actually cleaning up the roadsides the entire time we were there – and, unfortunately, there was plenty of trash along every road we travelled, no matter how remote it seemed to be.
The next several nights were spent in the village of Kumily, near the eastern border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which we explored at a leisurely pace. Our inn featured a lovely open courtyard that seemed to attract much of the local wildlife… this Malabar Grey Hornbill landed in a tree just outside our room, giving me ample time to watch and photograph it. I never realized what impressively long eyelashes a hornbill has!
Bonnet Macaques were plentiful in the area, and seemed to especially enjoy spending time around our courtyard in the mornings, during breakfast. The morning meal was served in a dining area bordering the courtyard, opening onto it over a low wall. On our first morning one of these crafty primates snuck along the courtyard wall, popped up and grabbed a croissant from my friend’s plate, then ran off with it before we had time to react! Once we recovered from the start of it, we had a healthy laugh – but these monkeys can deliver severe bites and the staff does not encourage them to loiter. No abuse was witnessed, however. The locals seemed to generally respect the local wildlife, even when a critter had to be shooed away from the breakfast table!
During our ambles, even as we explored the town, we were honored to see much of that wildlife: huge fruit bats streamed past overhead each evening at dusk, by the hundreds; the muntjac pictured here I spotted near a stream across the road from our inn; cows, considered sacred, wandered the streets and roadways, leisurely grazing and seemingly unaware of the sometimes hectic human activity around them. I was fortunate to spot and photograph many birds, such as the Pond Heron below. Some were familiar, but most were new to me and I was overjoyed to see so many unusual species.
As we wandered and explored, we also visited a number of plantations, farms, and botanical research stations. Each was unique and fascinating, and offered a huge variety of plants, some bearing colorful flowers, others contributing to the deep greens that surrounded us no matter where we went. This is a photo of a black pepper vine, which was often grown as a secondary crop. Southern India is considered the black pepper capital of the world, so these vines were a fairly common sight to us after a while.
While still based in Kumily, we spent a day on a side trip into Tamil Nadu. Our first sight of this state was a wide green valley with a river snaking through it, spread out below us as we crested the top of a mountain pass. Our day was spent primarily at open air markets, our goal being one of the flower markets the area is famous for. On our way we stopped to witness what looked like a festival, but was actually a wedding – and we were invited to join in! We watched the procession, listened to the music, and spoke to a few of the many smiling wedding guests for a bit, then continued on our way. It was such a happy introduction to this lovely part of the country!
Once back in Kerala, we made our way to the coast, and spent a day wandering around Fort Kochi. This area seems geared more toward western visitors, but it was fascinating and we found many examples of gorgeous local artistry in the forms of statuary, embroidery, architecture, and food. We found a place that made iced cardamom coffee (made with mineral water) that I’m still trying to replicate! It was one of the most flavorful and refreshing drinks I’ve ever tasted! I had never seen a Banyan Tree prior to this either – I was quite impressed by the size of this beautiful tree.
One of the highlights of the trip for many in our group was a visit to the beach, and it was one of the few days we spent with no set agenda. We had a lovely afternoon lounging on the sands overlooking the Arabian sea, taking long walks along the shore, and chatting together as the sun sank into the ocean. It was a magical, and very relaxing afternoon, punctuated by a spectacular sunset. I’m usually a mountain and woodland gal, but I too loved walking along this beach as the hazy blue sky turned a rich magenta. What a lovely day!
Before our group scattered to make our various ways home, we spent a day on a houseboat, cruising the many inter-weaving back channels of Kerala. It was another chance for relaxation and easy conversation, and we all enjoyed the sights, the peaceful pace, and our last precious hours together. The boat moved slowly, and we were able to catch leisurely glimpses of the people who live along these waterways: clothes hanging out to dry, dogs snoozing on thresholds, vast unused rice paddies punctuated with lotus blossoms, small boats ferrying families across one channel or another, a group of men fishing off a dock, children playing, a man swimming out to retrieve a wayward canoe… catching these little snippets of rural life here was all a special and wonderful gift.
After the group disbanded, three of us travelled north together to visit Jaipur, the “Pink City.” Compared to the mostly rural locales we’d spent the previous ten days or so in, the hustle and bustle of this city was a little overwhelming. But it’s an impressive and generally friendly city, with some incredible architecture, such as the Amer (Amber) Fort, the Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds), and the Jal Mahal (Water Palace) pictured here, which can only be reached by boat. It was my last stop before heading home, and the three of us made the most of our last few days together. It was an amazing trip to a beautiful and incredible country filled with color and noise, lush countryside, a complex and varied culture, and warm, friendly people. This was an all-to-short synopsis of my time in India, but hopefully it succeeded in providing a taste of the wonders you might also find there!