The driver turned up at 10am as arranged and after parting with IR3700 (GBP37.00), we set off for Kalpetta. I had an email from the guide we were supposed to meet tomorrow and all seemed fine.
After refusing to stump up a further IR500 to turn the air conditioning on because we had already paid for it in the agreed price, we journeyed onwards. The road was being widened for about twenty miles but wherever a culvert needed constructing, the surface reverted to sandy gravel. As many culverts were apparently required progress was slow and dusty.
Then we were stopped by a queue of traffic due to a major accident which had closed the road. After waiting half an hour and there being no sign that the road would reopen, the driver decided to circumvent the problem using unmetalled local roads.
It took about an hour to regain the main road the other side of the accident. We passed through villages where all the inhabitants came out of their dwellings to witness the unusual convoys of vehicles traversing their normally sleepy roads. The land was poor and mostly given over to cotton fields, looking to contain only dead sticks as the soil was so dry, except when you looked closely there were flowers even though there were no leaves.
At one point the truck we were following, exasperated with the slowness of the car in front of him, just turned into a ploughed field and drove across it faster than being on the road.
Eventually once on the main road again we reached higher ground and instead of cotton, coconut, banana and grazing, the land was covered by a dry forest. As soon as we crossed the state boundary to Kerala, however, the forest became greener and frequent speed bumps reminded us we were in a tiger reserve. However I'm not sure the tigers appreciated that most of the traffic had been calmed for them, excepting the one poor motorist who hit a speed bump at speed and ended up sideways in a ditch, as they were notable by their absence.
After three hours we reached Kalpetta and the sanctuary of the Best Western plus Ekobarn. Don't ask. Just accept that if an ekobarn exists anywhere, it is probably here. This hotel is a haven of good food, civilisation and tranquility in a maelstrom of hooting traffic, scurrying people and wandering pregnant goats, and if they want to claim to be an ekobarn as well, I'm not going to gainsay them.
The guide we had arranged to go with tomorrow emailed to say he was sorry but he had troubles which prevented him from working that day. He was the only reason we had come to this town in the first place so we were not best pleased.
After an excellent meal at the hotel, we tried to find the tourist information office to enquire about travelling onwards the day after tomorrow, but it was closed behind anonymous shutters. We found the bus station manager of the old bus station who told us there was a daily bus to Kannur at 10:30am from the new bus station, which didn't have a manager or anyone at all who could provide information.
The hotel desk however arranged at very short notice a trip to the Mutanga wildlife reserve at rather high cost, and for which we must start at 6am. They also arranged for a bootleg delivery of beer, this being unfortunately one of India's dry states. We paid the tuk-tuk driver who brought it, but hadn't realised the consequences of beer bumping along in a tuk-tuk, so were somewhat surprised and not a little drenched when we succeeded in finding the correct door fitting with which to open it!
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