La Gringa y Su Esposo: Wayanad

February 14, 2019

Wayanad: God’s own district in God’s own country, known for its beautiful landscapes and hardwoods, or so I was told by a local on the morning bus as we drove into the forests. Turns out Wayanad was closed for business. We had booked a really lovely homestay outside of Meenangadi, a tiny town between two other small towns (Sultan Bathery and Kalpetta) on the road between Mysore and Alleppey. We had hoped to hike up a nearby peak but our host told us it was shut by the forestry service due to fire concerns. To be fair a fire did break out in Kalpetta while we were there and a building or two burned down, so maybe fire danger was high. We shifted gears and decided to go safari in a wildlife preserve, unfortunately also closed. So instead of either of those, we figured out the local bus system and went to nearby Edakkal caves, which has petroglyphs from 8,000 – 5,000 years ago. This required walking up a lot of steps and afforded a good view of the surrounding hills, a decent substitute for closed Chembra peak. The buses worked well enough, with tickets costing between $0.12 - $0.30 each. It was only REALLY crowded about half the time.

On the way back we stopped in Sulthan Bathery for a meal and a view of bright white Assumption Forane Church, part of the local Catholic diocese. Across from the church was a mosque, and the Hindu and Jain temples were only a few hundred meters down the road, making it easy to cover Pascal’s wager for those so inclined. It seemed like each bus subscribed to a different religion, so it was fun to see what kind of blinking LED shrine would be up front (they all had blinking LEDs).

We took advantage of some down time to plan our next leg of the trip, do some yoga, and relax. Tim used an azithromycin antibiotic to finally restore his stomach to normal (it had been a few days of not-normal). We headed into Kalpetta to catch an overnight sleeper bus to Alleppey in southern Kerala state. We were in bunks on the top level, about 5 feet up. At some point in the night I sat up and at the same time the bus swerved and I got EJECTED from my bunk and fell the 5 feet into the aisle landing on my butt. Scared the crap out of the lady in the bunk below mine, and got a few bruises (including on my ego) during the fall. Surprisingly didn’t seriously hurt myself or hit my head on anything, despite how narrow the aisle was. Won’t do that again.