Beauty in Munnar

Tea fields in the mountains.

“They are on their honeymoon.”

“So that explains why he looks like a rock star,” Annette responds.

“And why she has Henna up past her ankles,” I add. “They are headed to Munnar too.”

The bus winds up a narrow road. I figure it is a good sign that the mountain vistas and waterfalls are already beautiful and we are still thirty windy kilometers from Munnar.

We arrive in time for a late lunch. This hill station town that used be a refuge for British colonial authorities from the South India heat is busy with Western tourists and more than its quota of henna-covered Indian honeymooners. It must be a nice honeymoon destination—a mile high in the mountains, a welcome respite from the tropical heat, excitement and attention of an Indian wedding. Most of them, I imagine, are fresh from arranged marriages, regardless of whether or not they used the services of any of the several Internet marriage sites we saw advertised on billboards on today's seven hour journey. Imagine if the honeymoon was a first date. Sure, they interviewed each other and each other's family. And they spent the last week of wedding wonderment and chaos together. And now, all the family is gone. The henna is fading. And here among the tea plantations and the mist, they glimpse at each other for the first time, for the rest of their lives. Do they have butterflies in their stomach? Is it all sex, presuming many of them abstained from ever having it before? Or do they wait? Do they feel the need to establish the groundrules of the marriage, teach each other what works and what doesn't for the other? Or has society already done most of that?

We leave the honeymooners in town as we ride a cold morning auto rickshaw up the mountain. It is 7 a.m. The sun is just beginning to light up the brilliant green rows of tea plants. We pass stalls covered in tarps, not awake yet for the throng of tourists and honeymooners who will undoubtedly arrive in a few hours. We climb, slowly, in third gear, then second gear. The tea plants stretching out around us remind me of the beautiful patterns in the cracked mud after the Katrina floodwaters receded. Annette gathers herself around my arm for heat. As the light begins to touch the tea plants, they seem to glimmer with a hint of purple. The tea plantations continue as we climb. They stop only where the cliff faces become sheer, then resume again on the other side.

We stop as the rickshaw driver shouts, “Squirrel.” Sure enough in the tree is a bear squirrel. It is aptly named, with it's thick black coat and touch of brown on the underside. It reminds me of a adult newfoundland, the only other non-ursa I have mistaken for a bear. We snap some photos and drive on.

“That is the highest tea estate in the world.” The rickshaw driver points across the valley to a mountain with neat rows of green striping it like braids. A path that seems to be only a millimeter in width from our vantage point zig zags its way up the mountain to the estate. I try to count the number of switchbacks, but I am unsuccessful. There are too many. And there is too much else to see.

The auto rickshaw driver stops. “You can walk here to that point. I will pick you up there.” He gestures toward the misty valley. “The road will split. You go right.”

So we set off on foot and start down a path behind a closed stall through the rows of tea plants. “No. That way!” the rickshaw driver hollers, directing us along the road. So, we walk the road, enjoying the heat of the morning sun. Tea rows stretch in all directions, sometimes dark pine green, sometimes lush and almost florescent.

We walk and take pictures and breaths amidst the mountains, valleys and clouds, all arranged brilliantly like a beautiful oil painting, to elicit a mood of tranquility and reverence. We stop in some plastic red chairs placed in the sun for chai. The chai is not very good, but it is warm. And it doesn't make me poop for a change, here on the mountain a long way from a toilet. We walk on past women gathering water and setting up their stalls for the day. We walk past offering calls of “Bread omelette, tea, coffee?” as the views get more profound. We come to a gate where a man stands in orange and asks for fifteen rupees admission fee. I wonder what makes the other side of the gate worth charging admission for, but by the time my mind moves my lips to object, my hand has found thirty rupees for the two of us. Sometimes, you just need to go where the tour leads... and be glad we are the only two people on the tour.

The path starts down a hill and winds around to a point. We have left the state of Kerala. Our feet now rest in the state of Tamil Nadu. We come to a lookout point. The mountain drops off steeply on three sides. I sit on a rock on the point and close my eyes. I can feel the warm rays of the sun on my left forearm. I hear birds chirping, tweeting and whistling. I can hear a stream tumbling down the mountain to my right. And the distant chatter of a group of Indian tourists. I can smell pine and eucalyptus, and what I imagine to be the smell of tea plants. It is all so fresh in the morning, almost a minty quality to it. I can feel my breath slow. I sit for maybe twenty minutes, listening, feeling, smelling. It is that feeling of bliss I experienced after that first hug of Amma's.

As I hear the voices of the Indian tourists winding their way down the hill in our direction, I open my eyes. The valley that stretched out before me is now covered in clouds. I can only see a few peaks popping their heads out across the valley. We slowly and mindfully walk back up the hill. I can feel my breath deepening, my heart beating harder, as we climb. The dampness of sweat arrives on my forehead. Still, I hear the birds. I feel the sun. I smell the forest. We stop to pull two chairs up before two women with a stall and a stove. They are beautiful. We ask for bread omelets. I expect an omelet with toast. But it is, in fact, a bread omelet. Two pieces of bread are cooked right into the omelet. French toast meets omelet. It is delicious.

I reflect on our past few days and the ashram. If the purpose of meditation, perhaps even of life, is to experience and live in God's love, then beauty must be access to it. Here, it is all so beautiful. And yes, it is a beautiful place with great energy, much like Amma's ashram. But I think when you are experiencing God's love, you notice beauty all around you. At least I do. The feeling quickly disappears as the bread omelet is digested, the dahlias in the flower garden have been oggled, and we are squarely in the bustle of Munnar town. And all I am left with are words, photos and memories. So, I share them.