India - Day 18 - Monday 21st November.

We leave the hotel at 8.30 for a long drive into the Western Ghat hills.  Along the way we see two elephants outside a temple, rowdy for a festival.

The Ghats run North to South and define Keralas Western border with the neighbouring states. It's a very long drive, round many hairpin bends and up steep roads. Overtaking is even more hair raising then normal, and we are relived when we arrive safely. Along the way we pass rubber plantations, and then, as we get higher into the hills, tea plantations. We get two stops on the way, once for the toilet and refreshments, and the second to photograph the tea bushes and harvesters.

Our hotel, Spice Village, is lovely, and we have a thatched hut close to the kitchen gardens. First activity is a tour of the grounds with one of the naturalists employed by the hotel. Their kitchen gardens are particularly impressive.

Later we attended another cooking demonstration, then watched some local dancers (female this time), before eating an excellent meal in the main restaurant of the hotel. Spice Village has the same ecological attitude as the Marari Beach, but here it is older, and much better managed.