Southern India Revisited

 Tuesday 12 February 2013 Shared Taxi to Munnar

How bad can a five hour shared taxi be when you have been struck by the dreaded Delhi Belly the night before? It wasn’t good but we are quickly recovering in the pleasant hill station town of Munnar surrounded by lush tea plantations.

We had eaten a non-vegetarian meal for a change and paid the price of a choosing a chicken stuffed dosa that may have been sitting around unrefrigerated for too long. I had a less than perfect night, being sick and thinking I was going to be sick. Ray wasn’t sick but he wasn’t feeling too good. We had reserved seats in a shared taxi to Munnar that next morning. I wondered if we should stay another day in Kodai to get over the Delhi belly but thought we might as well go. I actually felt well enough to go for a walk in the early morning, but not well enough to eat more than 2 slices of white toast for breakfast.

The trip didn’t start off well. We were told to be ready to be picked up between 9:30 and 10 AM. We were there but after numerous calls by our hotel to the tour agency and getting told the car was on its way or there was a “small problem”, we were finally picked up at 11 AM in a car already holding 3 people. We got as far as the tour company office and sat there a while longer as the “small problem” was resolved. It finally transpired that there would be another couple to join us and they didn’t want to sit in the back seat of the small minivan. Nobody did. Everyone, except me, feared they would be afflicted with motion sickness. Finally a compromise was made and the couple, honeymooners from Bangalore, got in the back seat with me on the understanding that we all would switch seats frequently. We did change seats but that was because of me. We started off down the 50 km of road that twisted around the contours of the mountains. At about the 20 km mark, I told Ray, sitting beside the door in the middle seat, to get the driver to stop as soon as possible. I was feeling decidedly unwell. I just made it out of the car before I lost my breakfast. A change in seating arrangements was made. The best compromise was four of us squished in the middle seat with me between Ray and the door. The driver took the turns more slowly but that lasted another 10 km before I had to stop again and be sick once more. I was not over the Delhi belly but surely there was nothing left in my stomach to worry about.

Back in the car, we made it down to the flats and stopped for our lunch in the large town of Theni. Most of us decided not to eat at all fearing that food would not stay long on the next 50 km uphill climb to Munnar. Ray was now feeling sick. He said if we couldn’t convince the older gentleman sitting in the front seat to change with him, he was going to hire another taxi to take us the rest of the way, regardless of cost. We asked the driver if he could try to arrange another car. The driver wasn’t happy with that idea as it might mean he was a bad driver. The fellow in the front seat finally offered to trade with Ray and I got in next to a nice couple from Hyderabad, who were also honeymooning. Visiting the hill stations is obviously a favourite honeymoon trip.

Four in the middle seat is tight but it worked; at least until the driver stopped to make a phone call, 20 km from Munnar. It was Ray’s turn to be sick. I think he had been resisting the inevitability all day and finally succumbed. I was feeling OK by then and we made it by 5:30 to the edge of town without incident. Ray was feeling better too. He said it certainly was a beautiful drive through tea plantations up the mountains to Munnar, if you were feeling well enough to enjoy the view.

Taxis were waiting to take us to our hotels, free of charge as long as the hotel was less than 2 km away. We had a choice of two rooms on the 4^th floor of our small guesthouse, Green View; one very small with a view out the front for R550 per night, the other a double room with a side view. We splurged and took the bigger room for R900 ($18) per night.

All I wanted to do as soon as we got into our room was rest. We both lay down and fell asleep. When I woke, it was dark. Neither of wanted to think about food. We just had a shower, washed some clothing and hung it to dry in the room and went back to sleep. So ended our first day in Munnar.