The Jungle

If you have not read Ponmudi first, I suggest you read that blog before this one. The trip through the jungle to get to the mountain top was a drive that for many reasons, I will not forget! It really began with the hike up to the water fall as that was the last time we drove through any kind of village. We did pass small areas where people lived, especially near the tea plantations, but for the most part we left civilization.

As we went up the read and climbed higher and higher, the road continued to get narrower and narrower. Long before we reached the top it was only one lane wide at best, and of course this is a two lane road. Passing other cars, and tour buses for that matter were sometimes a little hairy! One side is a dirt wall, the other side, nothing except maybe a 300 foot drop. They don't know what guard rails are and at places the hill/road was slowly washing away. When ever I get into these situations I always think to myself - Discovery Channel! I'm here with a camera and by God I'm going to make it! Seems to work so far. The road has 22 hairpin curves on the ascent, and we know this for a fact because they actually number them. 1/22, 2/22, etc. with signs so you know how many more to go. This would be something we would call a switchback, and yes there were 22 of them! There were places that the pavement was no longer pavement and other places they looked like it was brand new.

From here on out, nothing will go in order, because it was so overwhelming that I can't remember what was when - so here it goes. On our way up there were trees that first off looked like they have been planted because they were all in perfect rows, then the other thing that stood out was they didn't have any leaves on them. I'm going to look up what the tress do, like if they have a winter cycle even here in the tropics, because technically it is winter here. We soon realized that they were rubber tree plantations. When the road got closer to the trees you could see the little buckets on each of the trees to collect the sap so they can transport it somewhere to make rubber. (Once again, now I'm interested in this so I'm going to google it later.) The trees don't look very pretty, but being mixed within the jungle gave them a unique contrast. I figure this is what a maple tree farm looks like as well, only the maple trees are so much more beautiful.

The main industry for this part of India is tea, and that is what we ran into next. As we wound our way up the mountain side, the tea plantations were everywhere. The bushes are kept very small and not allowed to grow very tall at all. I would say that they were cut at a maximum of about 3 feet high and maybe four feet in diameter. This makes it very simple for the works to reach the entire bush and get all the leaves from it. Keeping the plant pruned also promotes growth in the leaves to keep the plant alive instead of wanting to grow higher, so the leaves are bigger and I would assume full of more flavor. The same reason they keep orchard trees pruned small, and even grape vineyards for the making of wine.

As we climbed higher, the tea plants continued for most of the trip as that is the perfect growing conditions for the tea. As we climbed however, other harvested plants started to show up within the tea, and along the road. The first thing I noticed was coffee trees! Of course these really are not trees either, but large bushes that like the shade of a type of palm that was growing in the area, but not sure what kind. It was fun to see the coffee trees like this, only because I've only seen pictures of this. It was not the right time of year for there to be flowers on the trees or beans for that matter, but we did manage to buy some coffee beans that had been grown in that area, harvested, and roasted! Can't wait to get home and try it out. Coffee is not a strong industry in this part of the world. The climate is perfect for the trees, but the soil is not the best as coffee enjoys very acidic soil like the sides of volcanos. Tea also likes the acidic soil, but is not as fussy about it like coffee.

After rounding one of those hairpin turns, somewhere in the teens, the driver started pointing out the different plants in the area, mentioning tea, coffee, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper. Just was went went around yet another hairpin turn Daren and I both looked at each other and yelled cloves! The air was literally scented with cloves! Have you ever put some cloves into a tea kettle and just let it slowly simmer on the stove, especially during the holidays, and your entire house has that wonderful warm smelling feeling? Imagine an entire mountain side smelling like this! We couldn't get over what we were smelling, and here on the mountain side. The driver then stopped, got out, walked over to a plant and picked several leaves and the seed pod and brought it over to us, which was of course the reason for this incredible smell - an actual clove plant. I thought they grew in small glass jars and just showed up at the grocery store all packaged and ready to buy! Incidentally, the four main spices used to flavor chai tea is pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and clove. The combination of these spices together are called Masala spices. If you are in a restaurant and it mentions masala, like masala curry, or masala tea, etc then this is the flavor you are going to get. Heaven on Earth!

Often, the road would wind into a small canyon like area that could not be planted for harvest as the ground was so steep. These are the areas where the jungle came out in full force. The size of the plants where something to behold. There was ferns, that looked similar to palm tree leaves, but were ground plants and the leaves would easily by 20 feet long! Some the the single fern plants would be the size of small houses. (Single lever houses in the states, not here in India.) The trees were so thick that to say you were in the shade was an understatement. It was very dark in some parts and I even took some pictures that didn't turn out very well because of how dark it was, in the middle of the day, with no clouds. The flowers came in every color of the rainbow and then some. Most of the flowering plants were in the area not affected by the heavy growth of the trees, so the sun would shine on them and they would almost glow they were so vibrant. The type of flowers growing this time of year, remember winter, were usually small, but there would be stalks of them, so even though the flower itself was small the overall impression they gave was of grandeur. The whole time was thinking to myself, this is something you would read about in one of J R R Tolkien's books, perhaps Rivendale or something. Then the cab driver said one thing and Daren and I both completely agreed the minute he said it - "Jurassic Park" At any moment a T Rex could come right out of the jungle! Okay, maybe not a T Rex, but the driver said that there were a few tigers in the area, and they actually had problems with wild elephants in the area. He showed us the type of plant that is their favorite to eat and then he showed us areas where they would walk through the jungle and mash down all the growth. It certainly looked like a T Rex had gone through there. We stopped several times to take pictures, and the sounds coming from the jungle were incredible. Insects that I'm sure we have never seen before, making sounds that gave the jungle a musical life all its own. There were birds of all kinds, including ones that we only see in cages like parakeets. This truly was God's country, and Mother Nature at her very best.

The last surprise for the trip, which we seen both going up and coming back was real live, uncaged, wild and happy monkeys! Now I've seen monkeys before, in Costa Rica, and if the truth be know these were not cute, but because they were small an in the wild, they were so cute! They were on the side of the road just hanging around, so Daren threw some crackers out the window to see what they would do and of course we got the response we wanted. They came over in droves. Grabbing the crackers and eating them and wanting more. We didn't hang out for long, but enough to get some good pictures of them very close up. There were even young ones in the trees watching us. On the way back down, we think the same group, but in a different place were once again hanging out, and we of course gave them more crackers and they were happy! They were kind of grey in color and perhaps just a little small than a Chimp. They didn't make much noise while we were there, but was happy to play in the trees for us.

I'm having so many challenges with uploading pictures, that I'm going to put a slide show together on flickr. When I get that going, I will post the web address and you will be able to see some of the great pictures in slide show format. We are entering out last week of practice here in Kovalam, and are not sure what we plan to do next weekend. We wanted to spend about 4 days in an ashram, but the one near by is full until the middle of March. I'll let you know when we figure it out!