THE WAY TO GUDALUR - PART 2

July 31st

Hello from Tamil Nadu! We have arrived safely – thank goodness!!! There were times yesterday on the journey here when I feared that we would not make it! Since I last wrote- a man named Richard (not his Indian name, but what he insisted we call him as his name was a bit tricky!) picked us up from the airport. He was late, so there was an awkward ten minutes or so when we were a bit worried we had been abandoned, but come he did and soon we were bundled into his car along with all of our bags. We had no idea what a journey we were in for…it was to be a combination of hilarious, educational and terrifying! I’m not sure I will be able to convey just how crazy the journey was- maybe its one of those things where you have to be there, but I will try! It started out fine; Richard was very considerate and made sure that we all had enough leg room and that we were comfortable before we set off. I spent most of the first part of the journey looking out the window very appreciatively. What struck me most was how beautiful it was. It is just so very GREEN here in South India.

Richard was a bit of a chatterbox and as soon as he realised I was interested in learning some Tamil words he quickly began teaching us as much as possible. Once he had run out of ideas for useful phrases he just named everything that we saw. Which would have been fine, (not great, as it was far too much to take in at once, but fine) except that it proved to be quite a distraction to him and he was often not looking at the road! After a while we began to ascend the mountains known as the Nilgiris. Gudalur Valley, where the hospital is, is in the Nilgiris. The roads were very windy – as in bendy not breezy – and also very misty- there were times when we could see only about a meter ahead, therefore the driving conditions were challenging to say the least but Richard insisted on driving very fast and continued to teach us Tamil (unsuccessfully!). The horn honking system here also seems to be very strange and honking is used very regularly as a way of thanking other drivers (one honk), warning other drivers that you are coming at them fast and don’t intend on slowing down (multiple short honks), criticising other drivers’ driving (two honks) and also to get birds, cows and people to move out of the way (one honk, very prolonged, loud, two hands)!

We also had some random pit stops along the way. The first was at a rubber tree farm, where he got us to get out into the rain and see the trees and how the rubber is tapped from them…it was actually really interesting! I have put a picture below so you can kind of see how they do it…they make oblique deep gashes in the bark with a knife and then collect it into plastic bags that are taped to the trees as it drips.

He even went and found the rubber farm owner and got him to show us what is made from the liquid rubber that is tapped from the trees. They wanted to give us souvenirs but we didn’t really know what to do with big chunks of rubber so we politely declined!

(I know its the wrong way round - I can't figure out how to change it! Just look at it with your head tilted to the right!)

Pit stop number 2 was a tea plantation. There are so many tea plantations in this region and tea picking and processing in factories provides a lot of jobs in the area. Richard was very anxious to show us some of the fresh leaves but it was pouring with rain so instead he decided to stop a tea-picker with a basket of tealeaves that was walking along the road. However, we had already driven past him at high speed so the obvious solution was to reverse rapidly 50m back down the windy, misty road and ask him to pass some through the car window. He seemed to be very confused! I had never seen fresh tea leaves before though, so it was cool to see! They smelt lovely.

Later, when the rain had subsided for a while we stopped and saw an actual plantation – Richard is the guy on the right, my friend Duana is on the left and Mona is in the middle.

We had a few near misses with Richard even commenting- ‘This road is very, very, very, very danger’ (4 dangers, I counted!) but this did not cause him to slow down! When we arrived in Gudalur, we were due to go straight to the hospital, but instead we made pit stop number 3 at Richard and his brothers office, (they own 2 buses and a car) which was basically a room with a table and a tablecloth over it…it was a bit strange- but he treated us like guests and produced some super sweet but delicious milky tea seemingly out of nowhere and seemed really proud we were in his office! He made us give him our emails and asked us not to let anyone else drive us apart from him, as apparently he is the most experienced and safe driver around and the most qualified to drive tourists…a very disconcerting thought!

Anyway – he did manage to get us here safe and sound! We met Julie, a lovely girl from Germany who is also on elective here and who will be living with us. We are staying in a mini apartment halfway between town and the hospital, although we are not staying here for long- only until tomorrow when we move into the Doctors quarters by the hospital, which is up a steep hill from here so I am not looking forward to getting my bag up there! I haven’t actually seen the hospital yet but I am very much looking forward to seeing what it is like! It is about 4pm now I think and we are going to go into town to buy some toilet roll and have a look around!

Bye for now!