Road trip to Wayanad

Rein checking in -

Part one...

"It was supposed to start at 5:30 am on Saturday morning. Simon and I had packed our bags the night before and went to bed early, having set the alarm for 5:00. We were excited about going as this was the first time we would be leaving the city (with all its noise and pollution) since the four weeks we'd been here. Also, as I was severely sick all day Thursday and most of Friday, we were relieved I felt well enough for this trip so we weren't going to miss out.

Then the first hint of it not going to go all according to plan came in the form of an e-mail from the organiser informing us that three guys had pulled out last minute and we now had too few people coming to warrant a van! If we were OK with a Tata "something or other" instead. Simon looked it up on the net to find out this is the tiniest of rental cars which would mean we'd be squeezed with three people on the back seat for (what we at that stage still expected to be) a 6 hour drive.  After some to'ing and fro'ing we managed to persuade the organiser to rent a people mover, but we had to fork out more money, on top of the handsome sum of cash we had already handed over for this trip. So be it, we thought, at least we'll be comfortable enough and I wouldn't have to worry as much for my back...

Then at 1 am an sms followed saying that the departure would be delayed by 40 min. Good, I thought after it had woken me up, that gives us an extra half hour of sleep.

(Just returning to the blog after a 10 min break, due to the gardener quite uselessly sweeping dust against the wind behind me; I had duck for cover to protect the laptop; a prime example of the ineffective use of cheap labour time here, the gardener has been sweeping up leaves around the house for the past two hours and when he's come full circle, he could start all over again...)


So at 6:15 we were all ready to go, only to receive another sms at 6:30 to let us know that the driver would be late... And another sms at 6:45 that the driver couldn't find his way; and another sms at 7:15 to tell us they were on their way to pick us up; and another sms at 7:30 that they could't find our house.... Finally at 8:00 we were on the road (only 2,5 hours after the schedule time of departure!)

You can imagine how Simon and I felt about this experience of so-called "sliding Indian time", with our Western standards of punctuality. But according to our host, in India you really are at the mercy of your given driver. Some times you're more lucky than other times and we were just unlucky this time. Somewhat grumbling Simon and I settled ourselves as well as we could in the back seat and decided to sit back and enjoy the ride. Well, let me tell you, there is no way you can sit back and relax in a car with a manic Indian driver. Our driver in particular made up for what he lacked in his communication skills with the franticness of his driving. Honking like his life depended on it (which in retrospect it probably did!) he overtook vehicles left, right and centre, regardless of what was coming up ahead, or even when there was just no way of knowing, like before a sharp curve or while climbing a hill. On numerous occasions his overtaking has to be aborted half-way, slamming on his break and relying on the courtesy of the truck on our left as well as the vehicle heading straight towards us to move out of the way, to avoid a head-on collision.

After a few hissed "Jesus's" on my part, I decided to place my fate completely and unquestioningly in our driver's hands and instead started focusing on the sights and scenery on the way. I really started enjoying the circus that on-road traffic in India is, from trucks that are decorated up like christmas trees  complete with colourful images and flickering lights, through scooter utility vehicles that are filled to the brim with a dozen joking and laughing workers on their way to their next job, through open jeeps full of ladies in their finest outfits, on their way to a marriage celebration, their colourful saris blowing in the wind, with road side stops overflowing with chai sipping drivers taking a rest and ox and carriages chucking along in the middle of the road, or cows strolling leisurely diagonally across the national highway. There were so many photo opportunities, but unfortunately, due to the manic driving style  of our chauffeur, actually taking shots from all this was virtually impossible.

So we drove along the highway, occasionally stopping for chai; through country towns and through Mysore where we caught our first glimpse of the magnificent Maharaja's palace (making mental note to come back for further exploration some time) and onto proper rural areas past Mysore. We saw the countryside and vegetation slowly changing into subtropical palm plantations and lush forests. And finally after 3,5 hours driving we reached the Dreamcatcher Cafe for our breakfast stop (it was at this stage almost noon and we hadn't eaten anything since waking up at 5:30 so we were starving).

End of part one.