Functioning in Heat

As you may know we flew south to enjoy the balmy weather of Kerala in its peak season. What we did not know is that it is hot. Not that pleasant ah I'm glad I'm sitting here outside hot, but really hot. I can't function, it's 80% humidity, the sun burns hot. So these past few days have been a struggle between wanting to be able to go out and see things and being incapable of function much less productivity.

Kollam we managed to do many fabulous back waters boat tour which was fascinating and also gave us a look at life in the backwaters. Our hotel ended up being fabulous as well, on an isolated peninsula out of the town. Our host was very inviting and planned it so we would arrive in Kollam in the midst of a parade celebration of one of the Hindu gods. At the end of the parade we got to see elephants!

In Alleppey we were there for less than 24 hours and it was so wretchedly hot that we laid under the fan in our room and ate in an air conditioned hotel. And that was it.

The bus ride from Alleppey to Munnar was hideous. We walked from our hotel to the bus station at 3:45am to find our 4:30AM <--- bus was already completely full. So we stood squished in the aisle with the bags between our legs on a bus that was worse than wretchedly hot. Like I'm talking drowning, can't breath, pushing you to insanity hot. I was a mess, my only shirt inside out and soaked in sweat, anticipating the 5.5 hour bus ride ahead. The brief relief we got when the bus started moving was squashed when every person on the bus for some insane reason closed their windows. I don't understand how everyone here can bear this heat, truly I don't, and they barely even sweat. After the first hour (thank god) people began to open their windows which made the ride infinitely more bearable. My feet began to hurt less, I wasn't quite so drenched, it wasn't quite so squished or claustrophobic. And then as we approached hour two, we finally got not one but three seats! Of course we can't get that without more suffering. The bus then parked and remained still for over 30 minutes. I've done a lot of traveling and I've been a lot of places, but unless you have been this hot for such a sustained amount of time, I cannot describe to you the sheer miserableness of it. Your other senses began to fail and your whole body shuts down until all you can do is stare blankly ahead with not ONE thought in your brain. I can positively say that I have never ever been so hot in my life. And when I say that, it includes this entire week, it has not gotten better for this whole week. As a matter of fact everyone of our travel days has been similar to this (though not quite so horrid), but we have yet to have one go smoothly, so fingers crossed!

We did eventually make it to Munnar where we spent New Years (I am not proud to say) in bed falling asleep, the reason being we had an early morning start to a trek through the tea plantations. I think this has been my favorite thing so far. Tea plantations are unreal. Literally. They look like something out of Alice and Wonderland. The plants are raised maybe 3/4 feet high, perfectly manicured with thin zigzag paths for the tea pickers to walk along and random silver oaks to keep the ground strong. It is incredibly beautiful and we had the pleasure of doing a 7.5 hour hike which was largely through them. The hike also included spice plantations and some great mountain views over breakfast. It is most certainly the most physical activity that Alexis and I have done since we've been traveling and there was a lot of difficult downhill that was rough on the knees. Needless to say we were very sore the next day. Our trek ended us at our hotel's cottage, nestled in one of the many mountains of Munnar. We spent a lovely night there before moving on to Cochin.

Cochin has probably been the peak of our inactivity as we've spent many hours semi-conscious from heat exhaustion in our hotel room. The food here has been fabulous though, most notably a place called Dal Roti, so good that we had to return to sample more things on the menu. We also managed to visit an elephant training camp in the early morning hours before it got unbearable. I can't say I enjoyed it very much though. The elephants did not have ample room and all had chains on their legs. After seeing families of elephants in the wild in Africa, it broke my heart to see these primarily lone creatures forced to live in spaces too small for their greatness. Anyway, we're off to Goa tomorrow which will hopefully be a little less hot and we will have the luxury of the cool ocean water. Alexis and I cannot wait to go back north though where it is breathable at night! The only downside to this is that the end of the south means the end of Ally, who has been a very welcome and comforting addition to our time so far in India.

Cheers,
Liz.