We enjoy the lovely views from our room and the Tea County Munnar grounds overlooking the town before commencing our return to Kochi.
Remember when I said 93km might be the biggest roadworks ever? Today we’re on a stretch which is 530km long – is this the biggest? Perhaps?
The Indian government has decreed that all national highways will be either four or six lanes from 2030. This is an extremely intensive project and means that many roads are being worked along their entire length just like our route from Munnar. There’s a short section through protected jungle which is under judicial review but the remainder is literally a building site We’re only using 123km section of the route but it’s frustrating enough and is going to take over four hours. We stop to view a waterfall, then cross a river.
I’ve been going to talk about Mercedes – everyone want to drive one here, and the quickest route seems to be to prize off that Tata, Piaggio or Leyland badge and glue a three-pointed star in its place. Or get some Merc hubcaps, or just paint the logo on the side of your car / bus / tuk tuk / lorry! There’s also this brand which translates as India Benz and is part of Daimler Benz Trucks so is actually legitimate.
We stop for a toilet break and our driver and Jishjoy need coffee. We’ve worked out a little wheeze here: we leave them to coffee and continue on shank’s pony until they have finished their break and come and find us. It’s worked really well and means that we are getting a few steps in – success! We manage 2km in 21 minutes before we’re picked up, Jishoy has bought a packet of tapioca crisps for us to try – more crunchy than potato crisps, they are lovely!
We pass a small mosque and then Catholic icons including one for St George, a sign these are Orthodox churches not Latin. We could dig deeply into the thirteen variations of Christianity found in India, but it gets complicated very quickly, so I’d advise against – as Jishoy said a few days ago: there are five important versions, he went on to list six; and the rest don’t matter … too much.
Happily it’s a very scenic route, so going slow is actually a bonus. We arrive into Kochi and our hotel just in time for lunch. Last time we were here we didn’t really appreciate it – we had just arrived in Keralam, it had been a long day with two flights and a difficult drive from the airport.
Today we’re relaxed and everything looks better, including our room. After a lovely lunch we do Spanish and then it’s time to head over towards the waterfront. We wander around the area for a while, walk past the first, now disused, and second, now hardly used synagogues. Jishoy tells us there’s just one worshiper left in the area.
We head along the waterfront to find our transport, and then out into the bay. Our route takes us past a fishing port, a shipbuilding yard and then out of the protected heads where we see the traditional Chinese style fishing rigs.
As the sun sets we are perfectly positioned, and then turn around to commence our return, passing the Raj hotel where Prince Charles stayed on his 2011 visit. A tanker passes close by, looking quite empty.
We see the “dining experience” in the distance being lifted by a crane – always fancied doing that sometime. Unexpectedly we watch it lower back down.
We get off our craft as the sky darkens and within a minute its torrential rain. Grabbing shelter under a stall, our drive comes with brollies to rescue us.
Evening dinner is excellent and the array of puds available is again extraordinarily tempting – so we succumb to a few, between the numerous power cuts which give the restaurant an eerie green glow.
