We’d been told that hitching a ride on one of the many jeeps that hauled vegetables and supplies up to the mountains was the edgiest way of experiencing the winding Ghat road up to Munnar and the surrounding wilderness of the Chinnar Forest Reserve that it snakes through. We were at Udumalpet, the last town on the Tamil Nadu plains en route our ascent up the Western Ghats in Kerala. Usually, there were jeep drivers willing to help out the traveller wary of the jostling crowds on the evening buses, but disappointingly for us, no luck! The last public bus up to Munnar started at 10 PM, and that was the one we found ourselves on.

Most of the crowd got off at the first stop, Chinnar, and the one hour up to Marayoor was through the forests. I’d heard stories about how the ride up to Munnar itself was worth the trip, and with the unmistakable sense of excitement was an uncertainty that came purely from having the ground beneath my city-trodden feet pulled out from underneath me. I’ve lived in the urban jungle all my life, so what I’ve seen of ‘nature’ and consequently my perspective on it has been extremely sanitized: nature has been that waterfall-bejeweled mountain in the distance that you’ve cooed about during vacations staring out the window of your car or train; it’s been that adventure through South American rainforests that you saw aerial shots of on the Discovery Channel.

This time, in spite of being on a bus with forty other people around me, there was a feeling that, willingly or otherwise, for the duration of this ride, I had submitted myself to my surroundings. It was midnight, and I knew that ours was probably the only vehicle for miles. As we trudged along, the sounds of the forest were all but drowned out by the creaking roar of our bus; a roar that became my only defense against the darkness outside. It was defense I felt compelled to offer. Inside the bus, there was silence caused by an absence of conversation. Most folk on the bus were locals, some of whom made this journey every other day. They seemed able to catch a nap, much to our amazement, in spite of the impossibly sharp, jerky turns that kept throwing us off our seat if we didn’t hold on to the railing in front of us.

For parts of the journey, I sat right up at the front of the bus where I figured the size of the windshield would offer an unparalleled “view”. The five-meter stretch of road in front of us was illuminated eerily by the headlights, and the intermittent rain coupled with a complete absence of human habitation of any kind made me feel like I was in an on-the-road Blair Witch movie with the shot focused unerringly straight ahead. Around every corner was another one. The size of the bus on the narrow road meant that our driver had to make ‘big’ turns, taking his vehicle out wide, right to the edge of the road, before a wide-arcing leap back in. The bus’s headlights seemed to recognize turns on the road only at the last possible moment, and the absence of roadside barriers meant that the road unassumingly skirted a steep, thicketed drop down to the valley below us. At a few points on our way up, there were new-looking cement-and-brick barricades along the side of the road: a result of the landslides that these parts are known for, ones that the slippery, rainy terrain gives impetus to. 

Suddenly, there was an abrupt slowing down, headlights were cut, and people were up off their seats pasting their faces to the window. Four elephants, seemingly within touching distance but actually about fifteen feet away, just by the side of the road, in an ominous silhouette against the forest’s dark backdrop. In the wilderness, they appeared majestic and supremely sure of themselves, much unlike the subjugated variety that we’re used to seeing in temple towns. As if to stamp confirmation on this thought, one of them let out a loud, reverberating trumpet as the bus started to cower its way forward again. Inside, the bus is buzzing with the singsong animatedness of Malayalam conversation. The regulars, who for a brief period seem to have swung back to life, take turns sitting in the first row to chat and gesticulate with the driver, who, in spite of an almost superhuman driving effort, never once seems to ignore them. We manage to gather later that to catch this many elephants so up close is rare even for the daily traveller, and this thrills us all the more.

Civilisation arrives almost unexpectedly in the form of the tiny town of Marayoor. Its outskirts (in as much as a town that’s one kilometer long can have outskirts) mesh with the forests in a defiant juxtaposition. We found a food stall — like many of the most authentic places for local cuisine, this place went unnamed, marking its presence with a single kerosene lamp — open at one a.m. in the biting cold and rain. Piping tumblers of ‘Black Tea’ were followed by a plate of Kappa Puzhukku — mashed, boiled, and lightly seasoned Tapioca - accompanied by a few ladles of Beef in Chaaru - bite-sized pieces of beef cooked in a delicious, earthy gravy of onions, tomatoes and spices. Tapioca grows easily here, and in abundance, and is a staple food in many parts of Kerala. For me, the highlight was the Kappa Biriyani, a marvelous example of successfully substituting the basic constituent of a dish with what is most readily available locally: Tapioca is used in place of rice, and spices and onions are cooked in coconut oil and added to the Tapioca along with beef and eggs. The way our chef brought these seemingly disparate ingredients together imparted a whimsical, ad hoc quality to the dish; a quality that can be overshadowed by its extremely practical reasons for creation.

Much of the rest of our trip was spent marveling at the fact that the incessant rainfall seemed to make no difference to anybody in Kerala but us: umbrellas are brought out wordlessly, but other than that, you wouldn’t even know it. That and the thought of stopping for more Kappa Puzhukku on our way back. 

(Ashwin had his fill of kappa on that trip but talk of kallu, freshly caught river fish, aapams and puttu have made sure that his travel plans have been decided for the next two years.)

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