Day 20
After waking up I climbed up to the main town and I wanted to slown down a little bit and I sat at nice park, because just next day I wanted to go to the next place. But I actually didn't know where to go next. The closest city from my list is Madurai, but I wanted to go there during pongal time to meet Haran's friend and his sister, so I had big gap before Madurai to fill. Raj, Tamil guy, who I met in Varkala and whose advice lead me to Kodaikanal, suggested Coimbatore next, with Ooty, famous hill station being nearby. But I wasn't sure about that, because it wouldn't give me time for cities I wanted to visit - Kanyakumari and Pondicherry. Kanyakumari being somewhat closer, but Pondicherry being far on the east coast.
I tried to find any information about connections online, but it was frustrating experience and I couldn't find anything that seemed sensible, so I become more anxious. I decided to do the next reasonable thing after online search - to go to the bus stand and ask about direct connections. Along the way I saw some travel agency so I asked about Pondicherry, but I wasn't really satisfied with price rate. At the bus stand I saw nice timetable with all buses. There was one morning bus to Kanyakumari and two to Coimbatore, no direct connections to Pondicherry as expected. I decided on Kanyakumari in the end.
When I settled that I felt relieved to properly start my trekking without worries. I slowly kept moving up to point of interests, but along the way I saw kolam drawn on the street and next to it young woman in beautiful saree doing colorful rangoli in front of her house. She was in full gear, saree, jewelry, bells of her anklets jingling at any step she made. I asked if it's okay to make photos and videos. People of the house didn't mind so I did just that. Afterwards they invited me to their house. Everyone was nicely dressed and there were more people than normally would fit such a small house. It was literally just a bedroom with attached separate kitchen and wash room. As it was explained to me at some point, they had some sort of consecration of a new house here. So they made some little pooja over big assortment of various gifts and devotional items and pictures. So far I felt like I only peaked at the Hinduism here. Seeing temples mostly from the outside, but only few times entering them (although never inner chambers). I never knew what is exactly allowed and how should I behave.
People were coming and going, it seemed that there's some other family house nearby. At some point I was left only with women who didn't speak English and little boy dressed formally into veshti (mundu in Malayalam, veshti in Tamil). I wasn't sure what to do with myself, while women were doing something, one singing some devotional song and they generally doing some cleanups of the house in the meantime. At some point someone speaking English returned and they wanted me to go to another house for a meal. I didn't know how to refuse them and explained that I don't eat non-vegetarian with additional requirement. They said that's not the problem and lead me to another house. They put me in the room and little boy with his mother came too. They apparently quickly prepared pulao just for me. I tried to find word for "thanks" in Tamil, but only "nanni" from Malayalam was there. I peaked quickly at Google at it was similar - "nandri". When I said that, the lady who spoke English and taken care of preparing food for me said that no need for "nandri", because I'm like family. Such a hospitality is always overwhelming, I don't think I can ever get used to that. One quick interesting point here was that the other house was filled with Christian devotional items. Was some intercaste marriage going here too?
When I left and looked at the map, I saw that the Guna Caves was opened only for some time now, so I tried to hurry up. It was also on the way with other points of interest. Along the way I saw barriers put by forest rangers. There were various instructions and commands written down on the barriers. One of them was "no walking allowed". I couldn't believe what I saw so I came over to rangers and asked if I really can't enter. They confirmed that indeed I can't enter on foot. I couldn't understand the logic behind allowing cars and buses to certain areas of the forest, but not pedestrians.
I felt disappointed and didn't have much to do with myself other than return to the town. On the way I thought that I'm not in a hurry so I can allow myself one more day here to do some organized tour and see all the most important things while already being here. I remembered that in Munnar the guy from the hostel said that except that government tourist bureau also state bus provider organizes something so I hoped that in Tamil Nadu it functions similarly. I went to just ask and indeed they were organizing tour next day. I chosen package with Guna Caves and was happy. The guy said that in the price they provide only bus tour and every entry I need to pay separately. I was used to that from Munnar already so I felt it's good enough option.
After that I returned to the lake and roamed a little before going back to my room. I texted with Nicha a lot and I felt like it again will lead me to sleep deficit, especially because tour will start the next day morning, but I definitely didn't want to stop with it.
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