Thekkady

We returned yesterday from our retreat in Thekkady, and I have to say that – as much as I hated having to fit all 10 of us into a Toyota designed for only nine every time we went to eat, sightsee, or search for a hotel free from monkey menaces (not to mention the three-hour drive to Thekkady itself) – I hate even more that we are in Thekkady no longer. The past four days were a very special time of retreat, spent among the love of close friends in a region of Kerala that is not only stunningly beautiful but also relatively cool and dry. Would you believe me if I told you I went three days without sweating? That’s a new record here. But you probably care more about what we did in Thekkady than how much we sweat while we were there. So here’s the story:

The six volunteers (plus our three chaperones and our driver to equal the 10 people in the nine-person Toyota) met in Kottayam on Wednesday morning. From there, we drove to Thekkady, a region of Kerala located near its border with Tamil Nadu that is popular with the tourist crowd. As we drew nearer and nearer to our destination up in the green hills of this region, we could feel the air becoming cooler and lighter, and it felt like heaven.

Our first stop was the Periyar Wildlife Sactuary, one of India’s largest and most popular wildlife reserves. There, we took a two-hour boat cruise on the Periyar Lake. For wildlife, we only saw a few sambar deer, a bunch of identical monkeys, and the backside of an elephant; but we were much more concerned with the amazing scenery and the wonderful chill in the air as the sun set behind the hills. Later, with tummies full of good food and just a tiny bit of Indian beer (quite good, if you can trust the opinion of a recent college grad), we fell contentedly onto soft beds for the night.

The next morning (Thursday), after a short hike around that particular hotel, which was located within the confines of the actual reserve, we packed our little Toyota back up and headed to a smaller hotel that was more “in-town.” This got us cheaper rooms, but, more importantly, this got us away from the monkey menaces, which you can read more about in the next blog. That afternoon, we played the tourist game and shopped, shopped, shopped! In fact, we shopped so much that a bit later that evening, we all had to go for an Ayurvedic massage treatment. But that’s a story for another time, so back to the shopping. There were beautiful handicrafts everywhere we turned, and, due to this (and the treatment we needed because of it), none of us got out of Thekkady with very many rupees.

But, along with the tangible souvenirs we got in exchange, we also got to bring home some really special memories. On Friday, we went back into Periyar for a trekking adventure. In my opinion, this event was just about as far as one can get from enjoyable, as I spent the two-hour hike mainly concerned with flicking leeches off of my shoes – you’ll understand my fear of leeches when you read my next blog. But I do have to smile when I remember the monkey that took a bag of cookies right from Achen’s hands. And I have to laugh when I think of how ridiculous we all looked in our “trekking socks” – big, ugly, brown socks that we wore over our jeans to protect ourselves from the leeches. Thank God they worked.

Friday night, we were exhausted, and Saturday was an early morning. We got up to pack the nine-person Toyota with the 10 people and all their stuff and headed back to Kottayam, stopping on the way to tour a tea plantation. Although I couldn’t understand a word of the guide’s English and therefore do not really know how they make the tea, the plantations are gorgeous and they smell like heaven – or tea, I guess; they actually smell like tea. Anyway, we soaked up that wonderful smell, as well as our last few precious moments of cool, dry weather amidst an endless blanket of green. And then we loaded up that Toyota for the last time (this month, at least) and headed back to Kottayam, where we parted ways, taking with us the precious memories of this superb time together, which will sustain us as we step back into our realities and face the challenges that are before us in the month to come.