**We're nearing the end of this exercise - I'm probably going to actually post a real new post when we get to its conclusion in a week. The end came on me suddenly, I guess much as the trip in itself. 3.5 months is a long time, but when you break it down into 2-3 week increments (countries), that really quickens the pace. This post was around my time in my cousin's friend's estate in the hills of India, a really nice last bit of tourism in the middle of a weird decision to spend a few more days in India. I enjoyed the rest of my time in India to be sure, but to get this couple day respite in the cool estate air was more than worth it.**
Day 97-98: Out in the Wilderness, One Last Time
These last few weeks of the trip include many different ‘lasts’. The last few flights, the last few beers to try, the last few nights away from my comfortable bed that is waiting for me at home. Well, in this spate of ‘lasts’ I was able to squeeze in a ‘first’. I have only once prior been to a Coffee Estate in India, the playgrounds of so many of my Mangalorean Ancestors and their contemporaries. I was five that last time, with little memory of the experience. When my cousin invited me to her friends Estate for a weekend getaway with her, her husband and a small group of their friends, I was excited.
To be honest, when I left Japan I had a terrible feeling of “Why am I going back to India, let’s just go home”-itis. Some of it may have been the fact that the plane opposite mine was heading to JFK. The other reason was that I was leaving my little 1st-world, good weather haven of Japan for a hot, humid stay in India. After my experience in the estate, I’m glad I went back to India. That’s about as good of an endorsement as I can give it.
To be honest, there’s not too much I can legally say about what we did at the estate, so I’ll say all the legal things (and you can fill in the rest as imaginatively as you like). My cousin’s friend’s estate (to make that easier, let’s call her Aneesha, because that’s her name) is situated deep within the Chikmagalur. I’m not entirely sure what the name of her particular estate is, but it is located in the small estate town of Haribeil. We took a bus there, which was a journey all to itself. We weren’t able to get sleeper seats (basically beds) on the bus, but the seats recline quite a bit. The problem is I wasn’t used to attempting to get sleep around midnight, especially when seated upright. We all got very little sleep, and all arrived to the estate lodge around 6 AM, sleep deprived.
We tried to brave the situation and stay awake – there was even talk of going for a morning walk. Of course, none of that happened and we went to sleep for about three or four hours. When I got up, I was finally able to look around the lodge with my wits around me. The estate lodge is incredibly situated high above the coffee hills below, giving a great view of the rolling hills afar. It is hard for me to imagine that this sight, this sprawling canvas of green, was located in India, was located in the same country that I know for its never-ending traffic and pollution. The house itself had a more personal connection, as so much of it was familiar to that of my Grandmother’s house in Mangalore. With its high ceilings hanging over large rooms with large beds, and rustic furniture and the winding corridors at the back where the kitchen and barn and cabinet lay. It was all kind of familiar, though also kind of different, because the house is still active (Aneesha’s Brother and Father run the estate day-to-day), and it is set with all the modern trappings of satellite television and three fish tanks.
The house also served as a little farm. Aneesha has six dogs, all similar in color and breed, but with varying degrees of age and size. They were some of the most lovable, needy (in a good way), dogs I’ve ever seen. They also adorably loved to do exactly what the others do, so when we took walks with them, if one dog went over to inspect a plant or rock, they all followed right behind. The rest of the farm included two beautiful horses, both riding horses, a slew of chickens, ducks and turkeys, two cats and a cow or two (we couldn’t see the cow). This animal house (not to be confused with the movie we went some lengths to replicate with our weekend) also had a personal connection, as I remember being told that my Grandmother’s house in Mangalore also had a large amount of animals. No horses there, but they were replaced semi-ably by Pigs. The animals left the house in Mangalore long before I was born, but I can imagine they were very similar.
Despite there being a full service kitchen, we mainly nourished ourselves with the food that we brought to the estate in boxes. That itself was an ordeal, with the rain pounding the box as we left in Bangalore, and for some reason us putting the heavier cooler over the lighter box for the entire ride. But the food, and alcohol, managed to stay relatively well maintained, and the food was mostly good. In fact, the pork curry that my Cousin’s in-laws’ family cook made was among the best I’ve ever had. That and Aneesha’s Corn Bread was enough for me, both being among the top 20 or so things I’ve eaten on this trip.
The lodge is isolated in one little corner of her family’s estate, and while we didn’t venture out to every corner of that map, we did go for a drive or two down the hill. First was to the river, for dinner. Because we came a few weeks before the Monsoon Season started, the water in the river was brown and unswimmable, but the group of us sat on the rocks in the river, eating some snacks (while the pork waited for us back in the lodge, the lunch-lunch), which gave me another feeling of “am I still in India?”.
Our trip back up (this trip was done by jeep, which takes about 20-25 minutes to travel up the winding, bumpy roads built into the hills. Quite a bit of the bus trip to and from the estate was done on similar roads, which means two things: one, thank God we were asleep for that part of the trip, because it would be terrifying; and two, for once, the reason it takes eight hours to go 300 km has nothing to do with traffic. On the way back up to the lodge, my cousin’s husband, who operates his own family’s estate, wanted to see one of the offices. We stopped at one and he walked us through the different buildings in the office square, the machinery, the process and how it all ties together. It all seemed far too complex for me, as I would have never imagined the harvesting and processing of coffee beans to be that intricate, but that’s what the distance I am from the beginning product does to my perceptions.
Our other trip venturing outside the cozy, beautiful confines of the lodge was our group walk, which went down to their old manager’s house and another processing area, this one built onto the side of a hill. In front of us were hills upon rolling hills stretching far into the distance, with a series of ominous low clouds draping the tops of the hills. Above us was the hill we just trekked down (we didn’t start from the top), and the top quarter was fully cloud covered. We headed back up before it got too dark (which we didn’t really succeed with, given by the time we reached the lodge, we were walking in close to absolute darkness). We all settled in for the end of the second full day, and, sadly, my last.
My cousin first told me that the trip would be Friday to Sunday (or essentially, Friday Night to Monday Morning, factoring in night buses), to which I said I was uncomfortable with given my early Monday flight to Mumbai. She then switched the leaving date to Sunday afternoon, which meant that we were now leaving Thursday night. I still wasn’t comfortable with this because I didn’t like arriving Sunday night at my Uncle’s with just hours to do the calculus that is my suitcases and the luggage that has to go in them. In the end, I settled with taking a bus back alone on Saturday night, and while I needed that extra time in Bangalore to settle myself before the Long Haul started the next day, when it came close to the time for me to go with the driver to the bus stop, that little outpost in Haribeil, I was sad to be leaving this group of people, sure, but as sad to be leaving this place. I probably couldn’t live in an estate, but to visit, there are few better things I can imagine doing in India. It is so un-Indian. Of course, the irony is that the estate life is entrenched in my Indian Mangalorean Community’s history. I experienced part of that history, and I can’t wait to again.
