A bit of luxury

There did not seem to be too much more to do in Kochi, Kerala, India after a couple of days.  I rummaged in the guide book for nearby sites, and saw an interesting backwaters area and high country with tea.  Escaping the heat to the mountains sounded like a good idea, but I did not know how to go about setting this up.

In India, we had a travel advisor-type person aboard the ship each day from 10 to 4.  So Will and I each packed a small backpack for a few days with the hope that we could make this work.  When he came aboard at 10:00 am, I showed the travel advisor the things that we hoped to do...... he told us that we could hire a driver, he indicated what it should cost, and he told us how to go about finding a good driver.

Then he asked about where we were going to stay.  There was a well-reviewed place listed in Lonely Planet, and he said it would be the best place in the area.  He made a reservation and negotiated a price.

Then we debarked and forged our way through the throng of taxi drivers to the "facilitation center."  Inside a basketball court sized space was one desk and 4 chairs.  We showed the fellow there where we wanted to go, and asked (as we had been told to do) for an experienced driver.  The fellow then talked to some drivers and negotiated a price for us.  During this process, we kept asking, is he experienced?
A piece of paper was filled out with the driver's name and license number -- one copy for us and one for the facilitation center.

This set us on a good course!  He said that he would drive carefully, and did.  Good thing too, because there were about a billion switchbacks on the trip.  Drivers get commissions by delivering customers, so we were primed to resist his suggestions.  But when he suggested that we stop at a spice garden and spice shop, we were pleased to do so.  The most local spices were pepper and cardamom, but we saw samples of many others, and even bought a little.

Then our driver suggested an elephant ride.  Lots of students had done rides in Burma, and we were not that attracted to the idea.  But we were driving right by, so stopped and did an elephant ride for a half hour through some woods/tropical landscape.  It was actually quite fun.  The driver then offered all kinds of other options for the evening -- night jeep ride, massage, theater production, who knows what else.  When we turned him down, he asked if we were happy.  When we said yes, he was fine and relaxed.  We agreed on a morning meeting time -- it turns out that there was a bunkroom for him to stay in at this place.

The driver phoned ahead for directions to our place, and found it easily.  Totally lovely.  We had a large room with a balcony looking over the tea fields and the mountains.  Air was good, it was cooler, and altogether pleasant.  We arrived in time for tea -- with Indian snacky things.  After tea we walked up to a promontory to get a view over the whole area.

Later was a grand Indian dinner -- excellent soup, 4 curry dishes, rice, local bread, and a desert.  I took pictures of every dish.  The Kerala cuisine has lots of coconut, and thus tastes very rich.  After supper, a staff person was waiting with a flashlight to show us back to our room.