To the Coast! Monday, 11/13/17

Our overnight at Vythiri Village Hotel was short, just a quick stop on our way to the coast.  The hotel grounds were luxurious, with walking paths and gorgeous vegetation.  Alas, after a brief walk, Jimmy and I returned to the hotel to reboard the bus and today we're headin' for the coast ... the Arabian Sea!

Ten or twenty feet tall?  And in bloom!

The Western Ghats (mountains) are as picturesque as any mountains we've ever seen.  Fog shrouded the hills as we began our descent, and let me tell you about the 9 Hairpin Turns.  We live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range and can vouch for some pretty severe "S" curves, but we've never seen "V" shaped hairpin turns.  Nine of them.  We had to wait our turn to navigate each one, sometimes doing a three-pointer, as other buses maneuvered back and forth to give us room.  Likewise for our bus.

The hairpin turns are numbered!

Down and down we went through the hills, surviving all nine hairpin turns.  I've added a red check mark where we could see our road at that point.  It was a rousing ride.  And bless her heart, Judy gave me a curved, blow-up back pillow to use, a real lifesaver!  Thanks, Judy.

I got a quick shot from the bus window of Rubber trees. (most of my photos are from the bus windows)  When we began seeing trees with yellow ties or green ties and bark stripped away, we quizzed Anurag.  Rubber tree plantations.  The quality of the photo isn't very good, I'm sorry, but if you enlarge it, you can see the bark stripes.  We drove by (fast) quite a number of them.

The billboard says PLEASE DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE.  Huge billboard!

We also passed several pineapples fields, another shoot-and-go shot from the window.

As we approached Calicut, we encountered this demonstration.  I'm not sure what it was about, but I know elections were approaching in Kerala state (India has 29 states, like the US has 50 states).  Here's something you might not be aware of -- Kerala hosts two major political alliances: the United Democratic Front (UDE) led by the Indian National Congress, and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist (CPIM).  We saw many, many CPIM flags with the hammer and sickle in Calicut.  Kerala has the lowest positive population growth rate in India; the highest literacy rate, close to 94%; and the highest life expectancy, 77 years.  Kerala's residents are 54.73% Hindus, 26.56% are Muslims, 18.38% are Christians, with a surprising (to us) number of Catholic churches visible.

And here we are at the Arabian Sea!

You may remember the tune "Far away places with strange sounding names," that hit the airwaves many years ago.  This qualifies!  Calicut, aka Kozhikode, is a metropolitan city in the State of Kerala on the Malabar Coast, and dubbed the "City of Spices" for its role as the major trading point of eastern spices.  In  2012, Kozhikode was given the tag of "City of Sculptures," and you see one pictured above.  I just have to tell you, Malabar Coast and Arabian Sea sound wonderfully exotic to us.

We'll be spending two nights at The Gateway Hotel in Calicut.  Our room overlooks this fantastic pool, but my bathing suit remains dry, darn it.

Sometimes it's the little touches that count.

As soon as we arrived, a doctor was summoned and he met us in the hotel lobby.  It was lunchtime, but we went up to our room (me, Jimmy, the doctor, Anurag, a guy from the hospital, and a lovely lady from the lobby dressed in a jewel of a sari).  Quite an interesting experience, being examined (fully clothed, of course) with an audience.  The doctor reported that I had twisted my spine and I needed 15 days of physical therapy.  Not so, said Anurag, we'd only be in town two days.  Okay, said the doctor, let's get two days' therapy in, beginning now.  Eat lunch later.  Jimmy and I were whisked to Malabar Hospital, along with the doctor and the hospital guy, and into the P/T room.  Right now, for the record, none of this looks remotely like a western hospital.

In the lobby, the doctor inquired how old I was.  I told him 72.  "That is so?  I also am 72," he responded.  "As is Jimmy," I added, "but tomorrow he'll be 73."

The P/T involved heat, electrodes, and vibrating massage, and I have to tell you my back felt better.  Getting in and out of bed or on/off the P/T table hurts like hell, but I was encouraged.  I'm not going to name the doctor, simply because he might not want to be identified.  Tomorrow, the car will pick us up at 1:30 for more P/T at the hospital and deliver us back to the hotel.  I was given a script for muscle relaxers and an ointment to rub on my back.  Lunch was waiting for us upon our return (thank you, Anurag), followed by a lecture for the group on Ayurveda.  Stay tuned, as they say.

Meanwhile, after dinner, Jimmy went to a demonstration of "Kalaripayattu," a traditional Kerala Martial Art.  I stayed upstairs.  I don't like missing these kinds of performances or adventures, because he always comes to the room, raving about his evening.  He took lots of photos, but these guys were moving so fast, most of his pics were a blur.  Floating out there somewhere is a group photo of the performers with the RS group.

Look at Gene, one of the guys!  All in good fun.

Tomorrow in Calicut we'll do some exploring and go to the beach!