Hair-raising Hairpins!

After the jubilee, Holly and I set off for the Western Ghats near the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. We were accompanied by three nuns who invited us to stay at their convent situated on a four-acre coffee plantation near Vaduvanchal. Getting there was a three-bus excursion that lead to many adventures along the way.




The excursion started off well with a calm arrival at the bus station (that's our red and yellow bus in the distance). We got on but it wasn't exactly spacious and our driver was hell-bent on making the three hour drive in an hour and a half.








I stood most of the way on the steps by the door. It was my job to lock and unlock the door each time we stopped. The ticket man would yell up to me to lock each time we pulled out.
Soon enough we were out of town and beginning the climb, via hairpin turns, to our destination at around 1000 meters. The landscape changed and tea plantations came into view.








We got into a little trouble when our driver hit another car while driving madly down the center of the road on a hairpin turn. He got out of the bus to argue about it.



We continued on until a few hairpin turns later when a truck in front of us created a quagmire.




But soon we were off again, still climbing. It was like Switzerland in the tropics.




The harrowing ride continued. Three buses later, and three hours later we landed in Vaduvanchal, a small town.


We followed the sisters up the hill to their beautiful residence and cleared the dust with a cup of hot tea.