We arrived into Calicut about 8pm on the 17th November and got a taxi from the prepaid service at the airport. It wasn’t really prepaid as the man gave us over to a driver and told us to pay him 500 rupees (about $10) for our half hour ride. Our taxi was an lovely old Ambassador car, no airconditioning and wind up windows. The”Raviz Kadavu” hotel was a much nicer hotel than where we had stayed previously so we had a good night’s sleep and then ventured with their driver to downtown Calicut to the local Vodafone office to get a sim card. In order to obtain one we had to provide a photocopy of Maurice’s passport, a photo of him and a letter from the yoga villa to state that we were staying there. They then check everything out before they give you access to the sim card which seems to take anything from three to ten days.
We had a delicious lunch with the driver at our usual”Metro Manor” hotel and then we had a more than usual hair raising drive up to the mountains with a crazy taxi driver who obviously had a death wish. We didn’t want to be part of that so Maurice shouted at him to be a bit more careful especially as the drive took nearly three hours.
The winding road up to Udayagiri which stands at about 1000 metres was being dug up for desperately needed road improvements
so we were transferred to a jeep to travel the last couple of kilometres.
It had been a year since we had been there and they had made many improvements to the villas and were building two more with
magnificent views down to the plain below. The plants and trees had grown considerably after a heavy monsoon season. It was
much cooler than at the same time last year and there was much haze and cloud and only a couple of decent sunrises. we needed
something warm to wear in the early morning and in the evening.
We were only six guests for the first few days – Bernard and Marie from Reunion island, Shoba from New Zealand and Ravilla from Russia. They were all lovely and we got on well. Once the couple from Reunion had left Reshma arrived from Mauritius. Guests usually stay for between 3-4 weeks depending on the treaments they receive.
The internet was unfortunately not working so I walked down to the next town a few kilometres away to find that their internet was also not working so I tramped back up the mountain, a wasted trip but very good exercise.
They did offer to take me to a town 20 minutes away so the next day I set off on foot for some exercise down the mountain and was collected on motorbike (no helmet for me) to the internet cafe which had fast internet access.
Three of us and the manager ventured one day down to Mananthavady a larger town 45 minutes away for a shopping expedition where we all managed to find some nice Indian style clothes to buy. On the way we saw a modern ambulance which had the words “oxygen” and underneath “freezer” written on the rear door. We wondered that if the oxygen didn’t work the freezer may take over?
Maurice had many mud all over treatments and poundings to reduce the calcification in his joints for his rheumatoid arthritis. Some may think it was hocus pocus but the natural treatments work for him and he doesn’t take any drugs which take their toll after a few years. I did the weight management programme (story of my life!) and it consisted as well as limited food to powder poundings and massage with medicated oil. Friends have asked us what we did all day but as most of the guests concur we didn’t have much down time and some of the treatments were rather taxing which left them feeling quite exhausted. A typical day was:
6.15am Pooja (ceremony)
7am Yoga for an hour and a half
9am breakfast
Treatments which are staggered from 9.30am onwards which take 1-1 1/2 hours
1pm Lunch
2.30pm Walk 1 1/2 hours
4.30pm Yoga 1-1 1 1/4 hours
6pm Dinner
7.15pm Pooja
After treatments, walk and yoga we usually are in bed by 8.30pm
Maurice and I didn’t attend the pooja sessions but managed most of the other yoga sessions. The staff were very obliging and caring and were a happy group group of people who looked after us well.
Ravilla and I went with the doctor, yoga master and manager down to the other Ayurveda villa location one night to listen to the staff
singing some Malayalam folk songs. It was about 45minutes drive away and we drove through the Tholpetty wildlife reserve which encompasses hundreds of kilometres through the western Ghats.
We saw about six elephants on the way there and then after dinner and the performance we stopped to look at a couple more
elephants who had two babies. We were very quiet but one elephant obviously didn’t like us being quite so close (they were near the roadside) so trumpeted and started to run towards us. The driver took off quickly thank goodness. We then saw two groups of deer let by a stag with giant antlers. It was the most wildlife we had seen in our four years of visiting there.
There were tigers in the reserve but the closest we got to seeing one was some droppings at the top of the mountain behind the villas. They were distinguishable by the amount of hair therein similar to other cats.
The locals we met on our walks always smiled as we greeted them and the children always wanted to know “what our good names were”.
The three weeks went very quickly and Maurice had a lot of success with his treatment and I lost 6 1/2 kilos so was very
happy. Our Russian friend Ksenia arrived a couple of days before we departed and it was nice to see her again.
We were driven much more sedately back to Calicut to overnight there and then flew on Spicejet to Chennai on the 11th December.