Day 13: Wed 22 Nov 17 - Kuttikkanam to Vagamon, 47 km

Day 13: Wed 22 Nov 17 - Kuttikkanam to Vagamon, 47 km - total so far: 861 km

November 21, 2017

24 to 31 deg, cloudy but fine.

Slept fairly well last night on a very comfy bed, but the room could have done with an aircon in this heat and humidity. Although it cooled down during the night there was no window to open and none of the doors had screens. I don’t know if this area has malaria but the threat is too great to share a room with mosquitoes. They have lots of water around here in ponds and water features so the ideal environment for breeding mozzies.

Was up early and met Phil and Bob at 6:30am for a walk around town, and most importantly to have a coffee. Their coffee making tools here are so simple, just a saucepan on a gas burner but it comes out so nice. The town was somewhat neat and tidy, at least by Indian standards. Plastic has invaded this country with a vengeance and they don’t seem to have the Cultural background to deal with it, eg pick it up. The hideous stuff is everywhere, we saw a tonne of it yesterday right under a sign which read “PLASTIC FREE ZONE”. I’m sure there’s an answer to this problem; put a value on it? ban it and go back to paper? get a simple, inexpensive machine that turns it back into oil? A solution will be found but in the meantime it just looks so awful, to us anyway. Back to the Hotel for an 8am brekky. Cereal, fresh fruit, toast, omelette and coffee. Just what we needed before our local ride.

Only 30 something km today so Mike had granted us a late start. For those who didn’t get enough riding yesterday he offered a single-track ride around the surrounding Plantations (read hills). This was just in case we had any energy at all left in the tank. Bob, Phil, Ken, Trio and I accepted the challenge. It was a great ride, a little technical in places, but different to anything we’d done so far. Saw the tea pickers up close, upset a few cows and took in some great views. Coffee or tea and food is not far away, so on the way back Mike took us to his favourite shop and shouted us a coffee, a sweet pastry and a “Spanish” which is a savory roll with chickpeas and beef curry. Absolutely delicious.

We then enjoyed a rare couple of hours of downtime back at the hotel until lunch.

Vagamon was discovered by the British who found the place ideal for tea plantations. They were followed by Christian missionaries who built their centre at Kurisumala in Vagamon. National Geographic has listed Vagamon on their directory of the "50 most attractive places to visit in India".

We rode away from the hotel about 3:30pm and were immediately greeted with a very pleasant downhill run; oh what a feeling. However reality soon set in soon after and we were climbing again. It was that sort of afternoon, undulating. The tea plantation theme continued all the way to Vagamon with lots of spectacular viewing points where we’d try to take it all in. I find it impossible to capture the true beauty of it all on photos, but I keep trying. What an amazing region for riding through. About 10km in we had an enforced stop when Baz broke his chain; shear brute force in those legs of his.

Just before the hotel, Treebo, Mike took us on an excursion to the Tangle Para Shrine, perched on top of a big rock; yep more climbing. Well worth the effort though, the views were spectacular, one side anyway the other was misted in. The normal photos at the top and selfies with the very friendly locals.

Arrived at the very nice Treebo Hotel just after 5pm. It was dark by the time I’d washed and showered so couldn’t have a good look around, a job for tomorrow morning. Read the Indian Times in the foyer till about 8pm when dinner was served. Initially there was a little confusion about drinking beer in the dining room but that was soon sorted. We were the only diners so we weren’t going to offend anyone. What a meal, I keep saying “that was the best Indian meal I’ve ever had” but the food just seems to get better as we go. Those hills certainly do promote a healthy appetite.

I was in bed by about 9:40pm, over 100km tomorrow so need to be well rested.