Periyar National Park

This park is about 110 kms from Munnar, and again this took 3-4 hours. The road is quite a tortuous mountain one but again with magnificent scenery and lots of tea estates.  Presumably world demand for tea is similar to wine… on the rise!

After we started descending the plantations changed to cardamon and coffee.

We were held up en route following Communist supporters....

 who were holding a march later on in the day.  All were wearing red!

And red was the color of articles for sale in the town......

We stayed at the Spice Village which is a thatched village bordering the jungle.

 They pride themselves on being very planet friendly and source most of their food within 50 kms. We can definitely recommend staying there……….we had very comfortable room

 and excellent food in both restaurants. In fact this was the best food since our arrival in India.

There are quite a few organized things to do while staying there……….

We went to the cooking demo where the chef explained the different spices used with the fish he was cooking. Very interesting.

We also went to a traditional dance performance…….

The afternoon was spent on Lake Periyar.......

 in hopes of seeing lots of wildlife. We did get to see 4 elephants.........

and some other animals not readily identifiable by us!  However I think in order to see many animals one would need to take an early morning boat. 

Munnar Tea Plantations, Kerala

We drove up from Fort Cochin to Munnar, a distance of 130kms........ it took around 4 hours driving time! It was a little hairy when overtaking, often 4 vehicles ,side by side, on a 2 lane road..... small autorickshaw on left, us, large bus on right coming towards us, overtaking a motorbike!!  That sort of scenario!  All drivers ignoring other drivers, and lots of beep beeps!!  I was able to relax ( a little...) once I thought about the driver needing his car to earn a living and the fact that there were no scratches on it!!
We did see a monkey or two.......

And an elephant or two......

We spent the next morning going to Eravikulam National Park

 to see the Nilgiri Tahr a wild goat which is endangered.  The walk was fantastic......once we got there.  The first 4 kms was on a park bus....cars not allowed. Then one walks uphill for around a km. Happily we did see three goats!

 They looked rather similar to other goats!! But the walk and the views were superb!

 We had not anticipated such hot sunny weather!  So became a little sunburnt!  It was cold when we left the hotel.....


The afternoon was spent seeing tea plantations. Difficult to describe how green they were and how far they extended.

And the tea leaves being plucked..........

And the final part of the day was spent enjoying an Ayuverda massage!! Our first .....but not our last!  The next is tomorrow!  Indians do a 20 min per day for 15 days once a year.  Unfortunately we are not here long enough!!

We stayed at the KTDC Tea County Hotel which would seem to be the best available in town. It was a little soul-less but was comfortable and easy to stay in.  Food was not great. We did eat out once but could not recommend that either.

Fort Cochin, Kerala

We chose a delightful hotel to stay in while in Fort Cochin, The Tower House. This is a Neemrana 

hotel , a group of boutique heritage hotels in India which is French managed and which prides itself on providing ‘a hotel which is not a hotel’!

We had a great room looking out to the Chinese Fishing nets, which are superb.

As I was taking photos I was invited to walk the plank and see how they worked!

Very impressive! And quite hard work.......

The catch is sold right there and one can even buy some fish and take it to one of the local stalls to be cooked.  We didn’t try that!

Some of the fishermen do actually go out in small boats to catch their fish.......

We also went to see a Kathakali ritual dance performance.  Very slow!  But amazing make up and costumes!

We did eat in the garden of the Old Harbour Hotel, which is part of the SLH group of hotels. We had tried to get a room there but they were fully booked.  We were not impressed with their restaurant. Our waiter had a very confused look and wrote our order down twice. That didn’t stop them bringing the courses in the wrong order and trying to persuade us to eat them that way! Ambience was there…… but we could have forgiven the service if the food had been excellent.  However it was only just OK and extremely expensive!  We would not return there.

We would return to the Tower House!

Our room was extremely large and was very comfortable 

and the local scene was just outside our window....

A Passage to India

Boarding the Emirates plane in Nice we picked a complimentary magazine , which on the front cover , showed that it had an article on India.

In fact it  has Rajasthani recipes in it!  As we were on our way to India via Dubai and will be visiting Rajasthan we felt it was a little prophetic.

Nice airport is a breeze, one reserves parking ahead of time on their Click & Pay system

and then it is only a 4 minute walk to the Terminal. 

There is a choice of places to eat, while waiting to board and some duty free stores.  And the airport is not too busy, nor is it very large.

Dubai, on the other hand is very large with lots and lots of shops. We were there 1-4am and it was like going to a shopping center before Christmas. Amazing!

En route to Mumbai we watched our first Bollywood movie!!  It was very interesting!

It had a very attractive actress whose photos we have seen all round the place on billboards since arrival. Her name is  Aishwariya  Rai   with Abhiskekh Buchahan , they are married and are  apparently India’s answer to Brangelina.

Our next airport was Mumbai. No photos allowed in any Indian airports. It took 1.5 hours to get from the International side to the Domestic side of the same airport!  About 4kms.

And then we took a flight to Cochin in Kerala. This is a very small airport but is international. It could not handle probably more than 2 planes coming in per hour.

We were picked up at the airport and as we went in to Fort Cochin realized that the roads are extremely crowded with a huge assortment of methods of transport!

Buses of all size and age! Open trucks with many passengers sitting behind, autorickshaws, motorbikes,bikes……….and of course there were quite a few goats grazing at the side of the road, and the odd cow!

No wonder it takes 1-1.5 hours from the airport to Fort Cochin which is only 40 kms!

Beginning to wonder if TripAdvisor has a section on airports of the world!

New Year's Day in Lourmarin

After a late night New Year's Eve  one does not want to do very much the following day.
So we did a backroad walk into Lourmarin.

The weather was warm and the walk very leisurely.

And we needed a cup of coffee on arrival..........

The Cafe Ormeau is the place to go in the center of the village, it is particularly good in spring/summer for people watching.

We were there late afternoon and the setting sun made the village look wonderful.....

but of course it is one of the most beautiful villages in this part of the Luberon in any case!

It has several Michelin starred restaurants within easy reach. 

 La Feniere is just outside the village 

and has one of the few female Michelin Star rated chefs in France, Reine Sammut.

La Petite Maison in Cucuron with chef Eric Sappet

 is definitely worth a visit.

Other restaurants of note in the area are La Closerie in Ansouis 

and 

Le Restaurant du Lac with Philippe Sublet at  La Motte d'Aigues. 

This is well rated on Trip Advisor.

We have been spending our time in Puyvert and have had the experience of a Provencal Christmas with the 13 desserts of Christmas Eve.

 We decorated a Christmas tree

or two.......

 and went to a great concert in the 10th century Vaugines church which was the setting of the wedding scene in one of the Pagnol movies 'Jean de Florette and/or  'Manon les Sources'.

The evening sky over Puyvert when we returned from our walk on New Year's Day was fantastic....