In India, the roads in the mountains and hills are barely enough for two vehicles. There are road signs everywhere : The first one is “Pin head bend” –which means the curve is as tight as a pin head. The next one says, “Sound Your Horn”. In all civilized countries, to honk your horn is a sign of rudeness. But in India, under the circumstances stated earlier, it is really imperative to sound your horn in order to notify the oncoming vehicle that you are veering in his direction and must take the utmost precautions. I took a picture of a vehicle with an order to “Sound Horn” to really show you I am not making this up.
Today, we were traveling from the east to the west of southern India. It took us ten hours, going through several national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and reserves. Since we would be in mountain areas for ten hours, I decided the title of this blog would be “Honking All The Way”.
India was under the British rule. The weather and soil was perfect for raising tea. So the mountains were covered with tea estates.
My newly bought (from Chennai) flaming silk red dress found a perfect backdrop in the verdant tea plantation. I quickly posed in the middle, and just as quickly, jumped back into the car.
Our driver stopped at a viewpoint, the Mettupalayam Viewpoint. This seemed to be a regular stop. But the fog covered the view. A waiting vendor was rewarded with a purchase of his “dirty ice cream” as we call it in the Philippines.
After a while, we found ourselves in the plains. Thank God for a respite from honking. The population was very sparse, cars were few. Then I was surprised by many wind turbines all over the place.
It made sense: land prices were low, and putting up a grid to produce electrity would be a good investment for the local government. There was one building with solar panels for its roof. But that was all I saw. Mostly it was wind turbines.
I closed my eyes trying to remember the studies on India made by the UNCRD (United Nations Center for Regional Development in Nagoya, Japan in the 1970s when we were there. Which states had higher income, which lower? I didn’t have time to answer the question because the honking started again. Yes, we had gone back to the mountains. Our next stop was Munnar, and the vision of tea-covered mountains sprang up once more.
We were back to “honking all the way”.
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