45-82% Silly: Stephanie in Valparai, India
Just to get us all on the same page, I am in India.
I stayed up all night, leaving at 1:15am to go to the airport. My flight took off at 4:15am where I managed to sneak in a 1.5 hour nap. I landed, hopped in a taxi, and road through the Western Ghats for the next ~3 hours.
Let me just say that South India is unmatched. The landscapes here are unlike anything I have ever seen, and they certainly challenge the stereotypically image of what is India. I do not know how to describe this exactly so I will add a few photos.
I wanted to stay up for the ride to absorb the incredible views, but car sickness said hello. If you look at a map, the roads look like a child scribbled them on. The amount of hairpin turns convinced me that this route was not a road, but a DIY roller coaster path.
Following the Drive
I am in a village called Valparai. The town is nestled in the Western Ghats, residing in the Tamil Nadu state, but decently close to Kerala. If you know Munnar, Valparai does not look too far from that. Unfortunately with road access, it actually is hella far, so cutting through Kerala to Tamil Nadu is a bit trickier without ones own transport. Instead I went with the Coimbatore to Valparai route.
This next week represents the primary reason I came to India. Many of you will call my reasoning silly. I think it is 45-82% silly myself, but I could not depart from this call to action, no matter how hard I tried. For particular pursuits, they will stick to my brain like a leech. Even if the optimal time is far past, I must, at any cost, pursue the pursuit. For the past 2.5 years, every since I found out what is in this village, I could not shed this desire.
Last time I was in India, I tried to make this journey happen. But with a mixture of friends cancelling last minute, me being a nervous wreck with money, and me being uncomfy with traveling alone, the adventure never materialized. For the past 2.5 years, disappointment lurked in my shadows. The thing is, this trip was totally possible, but I was too crippled by my own stress and shortcomings to pull through.
So mwahaha, Stephanie has matured. Stephanie has gained confidence. And most importantly, Stephanie has become utterly sick of being the biggest roadblock to her ambitions.
Okay, but what is it, Stephanie, that you are actually pursuing?
Right…
They are called, the lion tailed macaques.
Yes… monkeys.
I guess my monkey-loving caricature has not dissolved just yet.
But when you see these monkeys, I promise you that you will get it 10% better than before. These ones are special.
By the way, these are my photographs. Which means… THE DREAM HAS BEEN ACHIEVED. I kid you not, this was too easy. I did not even have to leave my hotel room. The owner of the hotel called my WhatsApp and goes, “they’re outside, look out your window.”
I burst a jumble of thank yous to the owner, grab my back and skirt down the stairs as fast as possible.
I think I am too lazy to go into the details of these first encounters. What I will say is that I shed a few tears when the villagers weren’t staring in amusement at my excitement over what they would deem. as pests.
One more piece of context. Besides these monkeys looking glamorous, they are also endangered, so seeing them is particularly special. Additionally, the species is typically arboreal, residing high up in the trees. What makes Valparai special is that this troop of lion-tailed macaques has adapted to the the terrestrial environments, passing through the tea fields and villages to grab a snack. On the one hand, I am charmed and grateful for their ability to adapt, but their consumption of garbage is still concerning.
Uh, I’ll give you more notes on all of this later. Too many details, and it is only day one!
A few days later…
A few things I am finding out about more remote regions of India, is that the food diversity significantly diminishes. I am quite confused because the outdoor markets have a diversity of vegetables and fruits, but I am missing these vegetables in the dishes that I order from the restaurant. At least the pure veg place with beautiful pastel turquoise (ferozi) booths serves the iconic Gobi-65. I have no idea what the 65 means, but basically it’s just fried and seasoned cauliflower. There is also a mushroom option which is very yummy, as well.
Today I decided to go on an auto ride through the surrounding valley. Ideally the trip would be for wildlife, but according to the staff, that should be an early morning or evening activity as during the day many drivers will be on the road. Fair enough. Instead, my auto driver took me to a waterfall, a church, a dam, a river, and we stopped sometimes along the way to snatch a photo of what versions of wildlife that we could spot. This meant a cow skull, birds, a peacock (which is a bird), and I think some form of mongoose (although further analysis is required for this one).
field notes:
Surrounding Valparai is primarily tea fields. The mountains have been scraped of their forests in exchange for cleanly lined bushes of tea leaves. Primarily women will go into the fields to pick these leaves by hand.
The dam was cool. Pretty big. I’m not a fan of dams generally, but I am always curious to see these demonstrations of human cultivation.
Mostly, I enjoyed the rhythmic bumps and rumbling motor of the auto ride. My head is still turning with the bends of the road, even though I am 4 hours past this point and relaxing in my hotel room. I allowed my mind to wander, while still remembering my place in the land. Emerson, in particular, was yapping at me: “I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.”
This quote from Emerson comes up quite frequently, for me, actually. I am constantly questioning the reasons for my journeys, hoping that each one is running towards something, instead of away from something. For this journey to India, I think I am nestled somewhere in between, closer to running towards, but also running away. I want to prove to myself, and thus prove to the world, that I am worthy— that I am competent—that those who leave are missing out on a gem of a being.
Intrusive thoughts tried to crack my brain during the ride, again. Reliving memories. Reinterpreting moments that have been turned over way too many times for reanalysis to be useful anymore. Luckily, I recognized the intrusions and reminded myself that whatever happened in the past is irrelevant. People ought to adopt a Bayesian approach, updating their priors with new posteriors. Update the image you have of me, because I have changed. I have grown. I have surmounted great turmoils. And if one chooses to place fog between us, and blur the image of me (& us) to one’s convenient depictions, then I am not the delulu one, anymore.
ANYWAYS— heh. The auto driver dropped me off at the pure veg place with beautiful pastel turquoise (ferozi) booths for lunch. I had mushroom-65 and veg biryani. Yum. I began walking back to the hotel, looking for a quick nap or something, but was interrupted by the most wild things of all— MONKEYS! Here I am, going through the forests and tea fields looking from animals, but the lion-tailed macaques are 200 meters from the hotel, again. I obviously got distracted for the next long while.
During the monkeys
Two little boys came up to me and said hi. And later they came again. And later they came again. Their English was quite good, so we began chatting. I showed them the pictures of the monkeys, and they told me about the other animals they have seen around Valparai.
Long story short because I am tired again, we walked together to the village, them as my local guides and translators, to find an auto driver that would help me find elephants. Unfortunately, again, midafternoon is not a good time to see them, so we headed our separate ways. I got some fruits and headed back. The monkeys were still there so I went ahead to take more photos. The boys reappeared, this time with a Sprite each. I complimented their soda choice, and they offered me a sip. I did take a quick waterfall, because I can’t resist a little indulgence.
Kind.
Last thought
In pursuit of wildlife, I fell on my tailbone down a little hill and electrocuted myself on a fence. Pleasant.
Please do look up from your viewfinder before you move. Thank you.
