Southern Kerala and Tamil
Nadu - February 2008 - On
the road in India
.
At
Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim
statistic regarding Indian traffic:
India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the
world's motor vehicles and 25% of the
world's traffic fatalities. Even having
visited India once before, I couldn't
imagine the chaos and frequent danger of
being on the road. Of course the
conditions we encountered ran the gamut
from smooth, quiet country lanes where
our tandem was the fastest on the road
to unbelievable chaos where it felt like
a bit of a miracle to make it through
the day.
.
By the end of five
weeks though, we never crashed, and
except for one goat I can't even recall
that we ran into anything. As in the
U.S. the traffic law in India seems to
be that if you get there first, you have
the right to the road. This law is
taken to its logical extreme such that
there's really no reason to ever look
behind you. Pay attention to what's in
front, be ready to brake and avoid
sudden turns. In this sense I could see
order to it all and certainly enjoyed
heavy, slower traffic to the far too
common high-speed chicken matches with
buses which left us more than once
bouncing off the edge of the tarmac.
It's no surprise that fatal bus
accidents are reported almost daily in
the newspaper.
.
Coastal
Kerala
.
We arrived at the
Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am
and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours
later. The city hardly ended. During
our first three days of pedaling, I'm
not sure that we were ever out of sight
of people and buildings. Perhaps we
shouldn't have found this surprising.
Kerala has the highest population
density of any state in India. And
within the state the highest density is
found in the southern half of the state
on the flat strip of land between the
sea and the hills - exactly where we
rode the first three days. We mostly
avoided the fast traffic of the main
road, usually riding a road closer to
the coast. The network of paved roads
is dense. There are many
possibilities.
.
It wasn't always
easy to follow these roads, and I can
think of three funny incidents from
these first three days:.
- We were
on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus
traffic. We noticed lighter traffic.
Suddenly the road ended, and we looked
across 100m of water with no bridge.
Thinking we had missed a turn, we
backtracked and quickly came to the spot
where the buses turn around. Locals
directed us back to the water and down a
sandy single track where we loaded onto
an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist
and another bicyclist. Two men poled
the craft across, and soon we were on
our way again. .
- Further north
on a similar narrow road we somehow
managed to miss the main fork. The road
continued to narrow and narrow until we
were on a three-foot wide dirt track
between two walls. Still we continued
and cycled right into someone's yard!
All found it amusing.In
another section we had been warned that
the coastal road was a bit broken in
places and we'd have to push the bike so
we weren't surprised to come upon a
sandy single track. It was surprising
to come upon a mahout on his elephant
traveling in the opposite direction on
this track. It was very sandy off the
track and thinking the elephant would
have an easier time of it than we would
I kept on the track. The mahout
hollered at us, and we were quite close
before we ducked out of the
way!
.
Cardamom
Hills
.
After three days of
riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try
anything besides the Kerala coastal
strip so we headed east into the hills.
In less than 10km we came to the most
peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd
seen up to that point. Of course it all
wasn't like that, but we had made a good
choice.
.
We rode for three days
to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar
tourist area and two more to get to more
beautiful, more touristy, and higher
Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of
those days, but the roads were
well-graded and simply by luck rather
than any planning we only had a couple
climbs that lasted more than 15km. On
the other hand after climbing out of
Munnar, we descended about 70km down to
Kurichikottai. That would have been a
brutal climb.
.
Through the hills
and mountains we pedaled in misty,
forested areas where all we could hear
was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I
thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he
recorded on his 'round the world trip.
We also rode through cardamom (these are
the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber,
tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and
coconut. The tea plantations were
particularly beautiful as they seem to
glow a translucent green.
.
The
Tamil Nadu plains
.
Along the
road from Munnar we met David who
invited us to stay with his family in
Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil
Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to
Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic
health care and sanitation. He
explained that most people don't have
toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu
and we'd see many people using the side
of the roads as a toilet in the morning.
We spent the next two weeks riding in
Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing
I'll remember from our early morning
riding there.
.
In spite of that,
the riding in Tamil Nadu was more
enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There
were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful
agriculture areas, good roads, light
traffic, compact cities. Also the
weather was more comfortable since it
was drier than Kerala. (Overall the
weather on the whole trip was good. We
never wanted a/c at night. Most of the
day was warm, but it felt pretty hot
from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding
then.)
.
We visited a number of
temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani,
Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli,
Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These
places are on the Hindu pilgrimage
circuit and except for Sivakasi and
Tirunelveli were crowded with
pilgrims.
.
Any place that's
popular for Indians to visit is
absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We
experienced this in Munnar and
Kanniyakumari, both places that we
stayed a few days. Once the weekend
crowds went home, we enjoyed the
relative tranquility of these
towns.
.
Sivakasi is famous for
being a production center for fireworks.
We ended up visiting the city because
we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the
Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us
to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami,
managed to arrange a tour of a cracker
factory for the four of us. Seeing the
workers and the working conditions was
the most moving experience of the trip.
The "factories" - though there's nothing
automated about them - are scattered out
on the hot plain away from the city and
away from each other. The factory we
visited consisted of about 20 small
(4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings.
Each building has at least four doors
which are always opened during work
hours. There's no electricity. The
design - good ventilation, many escape
routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to
prevent accidents. The workers are paid
by the piece and earn about $3/day for
this boring, repetitive, dangerous work.
They're in constant contact with the
chemicals in the fireworks - though some
jobs looked much worse than others - and
must fully wash before leaving the
premises (to keep the unhealthy,
volatile chemicals out of their homes).
It was the closest thing I've seen to a
sweat shop. Two women asked me to take
them to my home, the only time that
happened during this trip. That said,
the workers appeared to genuinely return
our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid
more than the average wage in India,
perhaps even double (?).
.
The
culinary journey
.
During our
first trip to India, we spent two months
in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar
Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the
food. Then we spent a month in the
Andaman Islands where there is mostly
South Indian food. We were introduced
to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we
loved it! Indeed both of us prefer
South Indian food to North Indian. The
South Indian food is lighter, less oily,
and less rich. It's food that can be
eaten every day - not like what's served
at the Indian restaurants in
Boulder.
.
For breakfast we'd
order a bread or rice dish - often appam
in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu.
Both states had dosa, puri, porotha,
puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are
served with curries and chutneys, and in
fancier restaurants different breads
were served with different sides. Egg
curry was a popular breakfast option in
Kerala, and many places would offer
omelets as well. All except the most
basic restaurants would offer tea (chai)
and coffee. There wasn't much
difference between dinner and breakfast
unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant
and order specific made-to-order
curries.
.
Lunch is an
all-you-can-eat affair based on rice.
In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as
plates, but I don't think we saw that a
single time in Kerala. Silverware is
not used. The rice comes with a number
of vegetable sides, pickled stuff,
papadam, and a pudding for dessert.
Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and
curd to pour over the rice, and they're
constantly dumping more vegetables and
rices onto your plate. The food was
continually tasty. The one complaint
would be that it was somewhat
repetitive.
.
Kovalam and
Mumbai
.
20km before
completing our loop in
Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple
days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I
was impressed. The beaches were
beautiful and clean with very mellow
waves that were easy and fun to
bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse)
is tastefully developed, and there's
still fisherman pulling in their catch.
I can see why Europeans fly to India
just to visit Kovalam.
.
On our
flight home we took advantage of a 10
hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick
dash into the city. We went straight to
the Gateway of India and barely caught
it in the last light of the day. I had
hoped to do a little walking tour, but
it's hard to appreciate the architecture
in the dark. The most memorable part of
this excursion will be the incredibly
crowded train coming back from
Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a
Saturday night. The doors to the trains
don't close, and folks hang out the
sides. People carry their bags above
their heads because there's no room
between the packed bodies. There isn't
even enough room for everyone's feet on
the floor. People stood on my feet, and
I stood on other feet. At the stations
it's required to jump off while the
train is moving to avoid being pushed
back on by the mass attemping to squeeze
on. Not being experienced jumping off
moving trains, Julie and I were a bit
nervous when our stop was approaching.
I followed the example of the person in
front of me, and a helpful passenger
gave Julie an arm to help her balance as
she stumbled onto the platform. In
spite of the chaos everyone was helpful,
good-natured, and polite. Farewell,
India.
.
The route:
Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala,
Karunagappally, Alappuzha,
Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi,
Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai,
Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai,
Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli,
Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam,
Thiruvananthapuram.
.
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