After a relaxing breakfast on the terrace overlooking the
misty mountains, we packed our bags and headed off to the bus to leave our
mountain paradise. We so enjoyed our
stay at Royal Mist. I felt like I was
leaving friends and wished that I was staying a little longer to get to know Anil,
Jeeva and their children better. We have
stayed in a lot of guesthouses in Europe, North America, and Asia—this ranks up
in our top 5. The beds and pillows were
comfortable, the shower was great, the room was spotless, the food and tea wonderful,
the location spectacular, and the hospitality and service extremely generous. Speaking of food, we asked Jeeva what her
recipe is for Garam Masala, and she says she uses equal weights of aniseed
(fennel), cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and star anise. She leaves them out for a day in the sun
before grinding. This is her grandmother’s
recipe. She also likes to use chili with
more heat and so mixes regular chili powder with the milder Kashmiri one-to-one.
We didn’t have far to go to catch the bus—there’s a stop just
about a hundred metres from their front gate. Our hosts came along with us to
make sure we got on the right bus (even though there’s one every 15 minutes,
they don’t all have the same destination).
Within about 5 minutes the right bus came along, so we hopped on,
pulling our bags on after us, with a final hug for Jeeva and a hearty handshake
with Anil. We were away by about 9:40 AM,
swinging down yet another narrow and twisting mountain road. Those drivers know exactly how fast to take
the curves—with inches to spare at times.
We rattled our way to our first transfer point (Perumbavoor)
and arrived just after noon. The fellow
sitting beside Lloyd (once again we were sitting three abreast, with me up
against the open window) asked where we were going, and he made sure that we
got the right bus—we only had to wait about 10 minutes. And almost 2 hours later we were in Thrissur,
and yet another fellow passenger helped us to locate the next bus. Lloyd went off to buy some food, and in the
meantime the driver started up the engine!
I hollered out the window, and he quickly paid for everything and came
back at a run. Off we went at another
brisk clip, arriving at our final destination of Kozhikode (old name Calicut)
around 6:15 PM, just over 8 ½ hours transit time and a distance of about 350
km. I was feeling VERY weary especially
in the neck and shoulders because it takes a lot of effort to sit in a bouncing
bus. Plus the windblown hair—charming…
Along the way today, besides fabulous mountainscapes,
cascading water, and scary traffic we were treated to the view of four
elephants dressed in their temple finery walking along the edge of the highway,
accompanied by lots of young men with horns and percussion instruments.
We’re staying one night at the Hyson Heritage hotel, a basic
business-type hotel, not too far from the bus station (although we hired a
tuk-tuk to get us here because we weren’t exactly sure where to go.) The first order of business was to have a bit
of a wash, and wow, the grit and grime on our hands and faces from the road
pollution… We found some dinner at a “Veg,
Non-veg” restaurant, sharing a chicken biryani and a bottle of mango juice, but
no beer—that is only available it seems in a bar, which we never did find—for a
cost of 122 rupees, about $2.50. Back to
the hotel to shower and write to you. It
feels good to be clean again.
Tomorrow morning we’ll catch yet another bus for a 3 ½ hour
journey into the Wayanad Nature Preserve.
Apparently this is a beautiful area with the best chance of seeing
elephants in the wild, and not many visitors.
I don’t know about internet connections so this might be the last
posting for a while.
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