Day 17

For the start, general observation about this region. In addition to observations from yesterday I noticed that a lot of people wear tilaka (or however it's called, especially regionally; pottu? but I think it means just bindi in Malayalam/Tamil), marks on their foreheads. It was barely noticeable in coastal cities, but here it is visible everywhere. I'm not sure what they signify specifically in its various forms - religious and maybe caste affiliations as far as I know.

I went to tourism center and they said to wait on the riverside before the trip will start. Wide river coming through mountainous landscape truly looks beautiful. In fact, name of Munnar comes from Malayalam/Tamil words "Munnu" and "Aaru" which means "three rivers", because three rivers meet here.

I met one ginger guy who seemed nice and soon his friends joined us. These four people and me were whole tour group for today. I learned that they all are from Israel. I thought that maybe I shouldn't held accountable random tourists for their government actions, but I think I couldn't help it and it tainted somehow my perspective.

We had long and bumpy road to the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. I was happy to spot here and there some monkeys and landscapes were as always amazing. We arrived to the point were was only one forest station and some stalls. We had to register ourselves for the trekking in some sort of forest department office, writing down information about nationality, ID card numbers and things like that. Whole little place looked like it's run by Adivasi - tribal people. That wasn't in any way hard to guess on my part. The station had written "Tribal Trackers Eco Development Committee Alampetty" on board and stalls "Ethnic produce".

We got the guide who was dressed in camouflage-like uniform of forest department and wore cap. He was clearly member of local hill tribe. We started to following into area with the sign that unauthorized entrance is not allowed. We were getting onto the big rock. He showed us some sort of burial sites and also skull of a bison that was killed by a tiger. We got on top of the rock hill beaten down by the sun and he pointed at the elephants's dried excrements and also explained through landscape where Kerala and Tamil Nadu meet and where we are going on this tour.

And here is the point where my irritation with my partners on the tour really started. To be completely fair though, it seems it was just this one guy with his antics and others were more silent and the ginger one seemed genuinely nice. Despite the fact that we barely started, the troublesome guy asked the guide if he could leave now. The guide didn't understand him and tried to point again on the landscape or something else. It started to be abundantly clear that the guide doesn't really understand English, except some basic words and maybe if question were related to things he pointed at. The guy tried to repeat it few times, but it didn't help. The guide simply told to follow him further. I gritted my teeth and immediately disliked him.

The guide led us to the ancient rock painting site. It's called "Madathala Painted Rock Shelter". Paintings were of bigger animals made with red ochre and little fainted, but still quite visible. The troublesome guy again asked about the same, how to leave, "where is the exit", he tried, but the guide said "I don't know, sir" and was mocked afterwards with the same phrase by the guy. I really wanted to hit him at this point, but I didn't think it was good idea. At later point he asked him if he could use nickname for him (he had his name written on uniform) and joked around.

We were going by some routes and our guides was sometimes pointing at certain things, like bird nests or signs of elephants' activities. He was also sometimes picking flowers and gave me to smell it. From certain viewpoint he pointed at the places where elephants can be spotted often in the morning. Somehow I can say that I wasn't really very disappointed by not spotting elephants or other large animals, because I knew that there's no guarantee and chances are not that big. The guide was moving rather slowly, but surely, he was very light on his foot. Sometimes he was stopping just to listen and look around, but he wasn't passing any commentary to us to explain. In at least one case he said to us to wait and don't move and he vanished for awhile into the bushes. He didn't explained himself. Sometimes there was other forest tracker who appeared and disappeared from our view, but at the end he was accompanying old guide. He was a young man wearing more fresh uniform with more vibrant colors in comparison to wore down uniform of the guide. He was holding machete and effortlessly cleaning slightly the path. Soon we entered the road and it was already close to the station where we started.

We get into the bus again and we spotted some deers and also monkeys. We were stopping at certain places while our driver explained things about animals and plants. Big part of forest was fenced and as explained by him, it was open only to forest department and hill tribes. Only tribals could gather forest produce like sandalwood (which is very expensive apparently) and other plants which they could sell in small quantities for Ayurveda medicines, food or other purposes in Munnar. Somewhere along the ways we stopped for the zip line. I went for it, it was quite short experience, but fun. We had short break there for tea and I learned that the troublesome guy claims to be "polish" Jew. Somehow it didn't make me warm up to him at all.

We got to the Lakkom Waterfall. There were so many monkeys there and they didn't care about humans. I was standing by just next to one monkey which was eating their banana in peace. It's probably good to mention that at this point I learned that all these monkeys I saw are macaques - specifically bonnet macaque. Although somewhere previously I saw langur, I guess native Nilgiri langur, but it was hard to see from distance in its full glory and I made photo where it's barely visible, but still. At the waterfall I went to bath in jeans only, similarly how many other people were entering water. One Muslim girl was going into the water fully covered except her feet and eyes. Water was cold in comparison to what I started to be used here already. Through the pond around waterfall and rocks I was coming closer to the waterfall itself. On one bigger rock close to the waterfall, overexcited guys greeted me and wanted me to join them under the stream. There was underwater rocks path leading to the stream from the bigger rock, but so close to the waterfall, the water was foamed and the path wasn't clearly visible so I was a little anxious to go, especially because there were more people trying to go on it too. I almost slipped on it once, but there were abundance of hands that holded me and helped me to put my feet again on the rocks. I wasn't sure how deep it goes. When I was there I didn't want to put my head inside completely, because stream was strong, but my back was beaten by waterfall. I had there obligatory photo session with overexcited guys who were hugging and holding me and each other. I end completely wet, but very happy and that way I returned to the bus (my Israeli tour partners didn't enter water and returned earlier).

We had some lunch break somewhere along the way and it didn't help with my dislike of the "polish" Israelite. Although it was nice enough to chat with ginger guy and two other guys who said something sporadically, all of them have been eating with spoons. Yes, at this point I developed sort of initial benchmark for judging white tourists. If they eat with their hands and choose local food I give them bare minimum pass. They failed it, even nice ones.

When we returned to Munnar I went to hostel to change my clothes, because my jeans were still wet. I went to book another tour for the next day and when settled like that I went to town center to roam around and eat something, before returning to the hostel for sleep.

For the close up of this day entry I want to put down one loose impression. When evening and night comes, people here in hill station dress up in a way that is absolutely hilarious for me, even though maybe it shouldn't. It looks like if someone tried to dress up for winter or autumn for the first time in their life, but couldn't quite got it.

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