I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on
the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., writer (11 Nov 1922-2007)
Hi Ice Queen and Aaron! (I thought that this was how your name was spelled!)
Great to meet you both. Thanks for the hootch and your most enjoyable company. Trust our paths will cross in the not too, too distant future. Happy Trails! Cheers, Patrizzio!
Up at 7:15 am to make tea and java for our malarials and after showering and changing we headed up to the restaurant. Enjoyed a full English breakfast with sliced spuds and grilled, whole tomatoes smothered in baked beans and then topped with a wonderful omelet. Back to the room to finish packing and then back to the Lobby to dash of one email as no connectivity in our rooms. Mildly annoying as I wanted to reply to scads of people but simply have not had the opportunity. Not being able to use my laptop in our room didn’t help, of course.
Anyway, Sunil collected us at 9:00 and we are now facing an 8 hour road trip so I’ll be able to work on the GDD in Word, as long as my battery lasts. Very bright and sunny after yesterday’s heavy rain and dull overcast, drizzly skies in between downpours. As luck would have it, my über expensive sunglasses, ($5 at the Penticton Farmer’s Market!), snapped in two, late yesterday afternoon, so I’ll be sqinty al day long, I suppose. Lady Darjeeling has promised to buy me another pair, at the first shopping opportunity, the better to control my errant fashion sense, I imagine!
Through Hassan, the town closest to our hotel, busy with last day of Diwali. In the hotel grounds, small clay oil lamps, each atop a leaf, are placed on garden walls and beside the entrances to one’s room. As well, lovely designs, in chalk, are drawn on the sidewalk at various entrance-ways. Spent first two hours or so driving through cane fields and coconut plantations, the villages here seemingly poorer than ones we’d seen over the past few days. After climbing into some low hill country, we came upon more corn fields, drier land, according to Sunil. Have passed quite few herds of goats, needing to slow to almost a stop to negotiate them. Tended by their herders, these are the largest herds we’ve encountered, to date.
Not along after the last herd e came to a village with the villagers streaming out of it, onto the road, dressed in their finery, most of the women holding offerings of food decorated with flowers, quite a fem men and adolescent boys leading goats, garlands around their necks. Sunil explained it was a village festival and the procession was making for a small shrine where the goat would be “cut”! We passed the shrine, a kilometer or two, past the village. If I understood Sunil correctly, the bodies of the goats will be loaded onto a vehicle of some sort and transported back to the village where a feast will be prepared in each of the homes of the individual animal’s owner. Friends and family will be invited to partake. Apparently, each village will celebrate such a festival, once a year, on different dates from one another.
Just passed a truck stopped near a small bridge. The driver was obviously working on the truck, trying to fix some mechanical problem, sitting in front of his vehicle, without a care in the world. We had to stop to allow the truck in front of us to pick up two chaps from the break-down, thumbing a lift, presumably to the nearest village/town to find spare parts, one presumes. Once we passed the broken-down vehicle we noticed that a number of large stones had been placed, not much more than a metre or so, in front of he back of the truck, as a warning sign! Saw something similar, placed around a large tractor stopped further up the highway. Low tech version of flares and high viz safety cones!
Many of the hill tops, hereabouts, are dotted with wind farms so wonder how much of the power is supplied to the grid in this region. Back on a six lane divided freeway. Had to stop at a toll booth and Sunil asked if we could use the staff washrooms. The Sisterhood was very pleased to find a western style toilet! Took the opportunity to look at the back rear window which Sunil had mentioned shortly after we left the hotel. Unfortunately, after he left us and was parking for the night, he backed into a tree branch which he could see. It broke the driver’s side section of the double door. He was able to tape it so that the cracked safety glass held together. Too, too bad, of course.
Much drier here and some of the landscape reminds us of the topography leaving Berkeley for the I-5 to LA, at least to the west, the hills as green as in December, in California, an unbroken line of three-bladed wind turbines stretching almost as far as the eye can see. Shortly after leaving the toll booth Sunil stopped at vegetarian restaurant and we enjoyed a simply delicious lunch: Hot and Sour soup, (Cora Lee’s “less spicy” was too hot for her so I scored most of it, in addition to my “more spicy” which wasn’t too, too hot for me either, I’m pleased to report.); Gobi Manchurian, [Not quite sure what this vegetable is but the dish was wonderful, as good as the Manchurian shrimp I’d ordered in Cochin, and much appreciated by Jugos Dom Pedo who thought he’d ordered it and so ate most of it!); Peter’s Veg Fried Rice and his Aloo Mutter, a pretty spicy potatoe dish with Coriandre, I believe. Naan and roti, ( Cora Lee understood the latter was corn-based but when it was served it was discovered to be from wheat so I won again! Thieving Naramatian and I finished off with black coffee with hot milk, “less sugar, so a wonderful finish to a truly delicious meal. All of us agreed that we could certainly live on such meatless meals, so terrifically tasty that we didn’t miss the meat component.
Backon a busy secondary road, heading west, into a slight drizzle. Lovely green, rolling countryside, gentle hills on both sides. Sunil is driving quite aggressively. He is certainly more of a speedster than Hanife. We know he is upset about the broken window and suspect repair will come out of his wages. He has already told us that his income is such that it is below the level for paying any income tax so this accident is obviously worrisome. Think we’ll probably adjust our tip to see if we can help out, to some extent, at least.
Just passed a gorgeous filed of sunflowers, al of the heads looking past us, towards the sun on our right, followed by a mixed herd of goats and cows, herded by a handsome, grizzled, older man. Next a much smaller flock of goats who were not at all fussed by Sunil’s horn. He had to thread his way, inch by inch, through the thick of them, before the others coming towards the highway were dissuaded from crossing in front of us. Next an unresponsive pooch, lazily trotting across the road, oblivious to Sunil’s repeated honkings, or completely unconcerned about the danger. Shouldn’t really be quite so cavalier as JDP has counted three dead dogs so far. Only a wonder that there are not many, many more.
Heading into the mist now so looks like we might well encounter more rain before long. Another large field of sunflowers. They’ll need umbrellas before long. Road surface is excellent so we are zipping along at a steady 80 kph, (speed limit), hitting 90 kph on the straightaways, when coast is clear or when overtaking other vehicles. More heavy trucks today than we’ve ever seen before. Non-toll road towards Dehli, Sunil informs us. Cora Lee has her head buried, ostrich-like, deep in her latest ebook, via her Kobo vehicle, (a la “vehicle” of Shiva, Vishnu, etc., aka app), The Rosie Project, in order to miss the dodge-em car game, in the rain, passing three, heavily road trains, with no space between to squeeze into, in case of oncoming traffic, on a slight hill or blind corner, choked with goats, that Sunil plays with gay abandon, much to the distress, (rest of gang), and delight, (me), of his passengers!
Just stopped in a tiny village as Sunil wanted a tea to keep him awake. Told him to have a smoke as well as we’ve seen him having a fag at other times. Back on the road with the nicotine fiend to regularly pass small herds of goats, grazing by the roadside as well as quite orderly lines of cattle and bullocks being led somewhere. Countryside not quite as green here, although the fields are well-tended or neatly ploughed. Short while later, rising into the next set of hills, we encounter the first of what looks to be the first unproductive land we have seen, suitable only for grazing goats, the hills rocky with exposed boulders. Passed a large number of monkeys some waiting to be fed, it would seem, at least by the expectant looks on their faces, others nibbling on some foodstuffs left by passing motorists or truck drivers. Sunil said they lived in the surrounding hills.
Back to dodge-em cars , now on rougher roads, so bit of rock ‘n roll, Dear Reader! Return to more arable land with even a few rice paddies thrown in to add to the cornfields and coconut palms. Now, wall to wall heavy trucks with bullocks on both sides of the road and a few monkeys thrown in to add to the mix, just before the the Tungabhadra Dam constructed across the Tungabhadra River, a tributary of the Krishna River. ["It is a multipurpose dam serving irrigation, electricity generation, flood control, etc."], and but a few km from a huge steel plant complex, "BMM Ispat Ltd., the second-largest steelmaker in the state of Karnataka." Not far from Hospet, according to Sunil, about an hour earlier than we had anticipated. Sun is really shining now so a glorious afternoon. Just crossed over an irrigation canal from the damn. Have passed many shiny, new tractors, well decorated with wreaths and garlands. Sunil mentioned that farmers often buy them on festival day. In the outskirts of Hospet now, (4:00 pm), so we’ll be looking for a liquor outlet as well as a place to buy some mix and a few nibblies. Sunil informs us that Hospet has a lot of drinkers so we shouldn’t have trouble finding hootch.
Needed a few stops, one for cashews and other Indian mixed nuts, and then to a liquor bar/outlet where Sunul scored us bottles of rum and gin, same size and brands we'd picked up in Mysore, so pretty pleased. Coke instead of Pepsi so even happier. No limes to be had so we headed to the Royak Orchid, our home for the next two nights. (Owned by the same group which owns and opeates the truly wonderful restaurant, in Mysore we ate at after Sunil took us to see the wonderful lights of the Mysore Palace. Unfortunately this hotel is a much newer, modern, although rather more "tired" ediface than the historic ) After we checked Cora Lee changed into her swim suit and went down to the pool, while I checked out the gym. Unfortunately, no elliptizer, so I won't be using this facility, unfortunately. Bumped into Lynne and Peter on their way to pool so I joined them and put my feet in the water but wasn't really interested in a dip. It was too cold for Lynne but Lady Darjeeling was a polar bear, (It really wasn't all that cold and one got used to temperature very quickly.), along with JDP. I took a few snaps and then came upstairs to try to log on. Couldn't do so after many attempts so called Reception. They sent up a very friendly, helpful chap and he did everything I had done with no better results. And then he turned WiFi off and on and that did the trick. Thanked him for his help and he was on his way. Pleased that I can now try to catch up with many friends and relatives I've had to neglect over almost a week.
Drinks, in our room, at 6:45 pm, before dinner in the restaurant here, so must away to shower and ready myself to receive our guests.
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