Tag: Carpets

Well I’d just you written a long winded pompous discussion on cultural change in an internet savvy media educated India and the sad loss of naivety and values in the name of economic development. But it came across snobbish and ethnocentric which was not my intention so I ditched it. Progress inevitably changes people, I am happy that many Indians have thrown off the vestiges of the British Raj and see themselves as equal with the best in the world, I just hope 5000 years of culture survives embracing western “values.” But if John my driver is any indication I have little hope.

I don’t like him, I may yet yell at him (he wouldn’t get it he’s so blissfully self-confident he could be a gen-y) but I’m stuck with him so I’ll cover my girls thoroughly and tell him to mind his own business when he wants to know everything from my weight to whether my husband lets me have other boyfriends. Yes I invented a husband who I’ve now had to flesh out for 500 subsequent questions. I have now swapped to “that’s never a polite question” as a standard response. It’s my holiday and so long as he continues to accept my instruction not to poke the accelerator like it’s a prostitute I won’t vomit in his car.

So moving on from critical observations… Today I’ve moved to Munnar up in tea country, does 5,000 feet sound right? The boys in the hotel in Cochin farewelled me with a four course breakfast which was lovely and fortified me for the 5 hour drive. Less said about the actual drive here the better.

There’s not too much to say about Munnar other than it’s lovely. The steep hills are covered in tea bushes which are plucked regularly by women, it’s totally manual. They must get osteo and RSI injuries. Their access paths and the regular trimming of the rows of camellias make the hills look like pin cushions or maybe tea cosies. They are dotted with granite boulders and occasional thin spindly trees to control temperature and give the birds somewhere to sit, it makes them look like a Japanese painting in steaming hazy tones of green. Everything smells of tea and you can inhale the anti-oxidants. Continue reading “Munnar, magic mountains of tea”