Kottayam, Kumily and the 'Little' Pleasures and Joys of Life

Mangalore was getting ready to set into the month of May. The semester exams had come to an end and everybody in the class let out a huge sigh of relief. We had two solid months of vacation and everybody had plans to scoot off home. I, on the other hand decided to put good use to the two months of vacation. My travels began on 4 May 2015. My first trip was to Kottayam and then on to Kumily. The journey began at three in the morning. I had to catch the first train out of Mangalore to Kottayam. I was never an earlybird and getting up in the morning was way too painful. But then the thought of not reaching Kottayam made it all the more painful. The alarm screeched at three in the morning and I was too stoned to wake up. I dragged myself out and packed my bags. I was ready by four and I walked out toward the road. The whole place was deserted, as always. I was hoping to get an auto rickshaw which proved futile. I walked four km to the station at four in the morning. Fortunately and Unfortunately I had booked in the AC compartment. I had planned on sleeping through the rest of the journey. The train moved on the dot and I was settling into my morning siesta. An hour later the compartment was filled with kids crying, yelling, and screaming their guts out. I was grumpy, tired and on top of it, the chill of the AC compartment gave me an running nose. After enduring ten hours of pure unadulterated torture the train finally reached Kottayam. Jezvin and her mom were there to pick me up. I was in no mood to beat Jezvin up, as promised. She was a little pissed at that. I had a terrible headache and to top it, it was pouring cats and dogs in Kottayam. Anu had caught up with us few minutes later and we decided entertain our digestive system till Leo arrived. Leo's train arrived about twenty minutes behind schedule. We hopped into an auto and we reached the BSNL quarters. The room was cozy with an ancient air-conditioner which was surprisingly in pretty good condition. Leo and I decided to head out and explore Kottayam. We started walking toward the bus stand. We got into a coffee shop and and started catching up over a cup of hot coffee and chicken puffs. Dinner was ingested at a roadside shop and we trooped back to our room armed with bottles of water in our hands

5 May 2015 - We had to push off at eight in the morning. Jezvin finally arrived with Jithin and Anu at nine. We started our journey and out first stop was at Jithin's house. A few minutes of stopover and we were ready to move on towards Kumily. Our next stop was at a dairy farm. It was situated on top of a hill nestled around pine trees. The cows were larger than the usual ones. Most of the cows were taller than me and looked intimidating. The cows were least bothered of our presence and they mooed away to glory. We decided to mo(o)ve along. 

We drove towards Vagamon and reached the pine forest. The trees seemed to have a voice and there was a constant whispering and whistling through the damp cold afternoon air. The weather was cool and there was a whispering of the oncoming rain through the trees. We started walking back toward the car and the rains began halfway through.

Our next stop was at the Vagamon meadows. It was raining and the meadows were closed temporarily. We decided to drive ahead to a waterfall and spend some time till the rain receeded. We came back to the meadows an hour. The landscape was beautiful and the grass was damp and cool with the rains. Twenty minutes later we were driving toward Kumily.

We reached Kumily at six in the evening. We headed out for dinner at around eight and Jezvin told us that she was going to treat us for dinner. We had a "That moment when your friend announces that dinner is on him/her" moment. A rather tasty dinner to fulfill the cravings of our greedy intestinal tracts and a short walk to balance the order of the digestive system, we reached our rooms at around nine. I had a bone to pick with Jezvin and we started our war at around eleven and it went on for an hour with the usual volley of physical and verbal abuses. After settling all 'disputes' I crawled back into the confines of my blanket. The weather was cool and I drifted off to a blissful sleep after a very long time.

6 May 2015 - The weather was great and the blankets were comforting. I was too lazy to get out of bed. A freezing cold water bath was enough to put me out of sleep. We moved on to Thekkady in search of tigers and breakfast, neither of which we got. All we got to see were a few monkeys and a rather uninteresting lake. We decided to move on and we drove towards the border and entered Tamil Nadu. We drove for a while and reached the vineyards. A few kilos of grapes were purchased and a few crazy photos later, we were on our way back. Enroute, we stopped at a suicide point and played with death at the edge of a cliff. We moved om to Kottayam. The return was yet again filled with a volley of verbal and physical abuses. We reached Kottayam by evening. Later in the night Leo and I walked to railway station to meet Jezvin's sister. We reached back to our room by around ten and hit the sack by eleven

7 May 2015 - We were at the station by eight in the morning. Leo's train was on time while mine was running four hours late. Jezvin and I decided to head out to Indian Coffee House for a cup of coffee, and lot of things happened over a cup of coffee. We came back to station by one and I was off to Mangalore once again for my long drive to Chennai.