Kummily to Kumarakom

January 6th (Kumilly to Kumarokan)

Before breakfast two pairs of birds stayed long enough in a near by tree to enable us to have a good look. First was the red-crested cuckoo with red stripes to its wings and a mustard yellow back. Then the blackbird which had a surprisingly clear and resonant song, and was distinguished by a tail appendage of two long stalks with a small feather at the end, 10 or 12 inches from the end of the tail proper.

The roads were full on a Sunday morning with buses and pedestrians including many long distance pilgrims, singly and in groups, with their belongings in a bundle on their heads, trekking to some religious destination. Looking out for the variety of Christian churches I espied a Bethany Bible Institute, which Douglas Fairman would have known about, I surmised.

The descent to the coastal plain from around 4000 or 5000 feet was predictably vertiginous, and the occasional group of bus passengers whose stomachs were not up to the challenge were seen by the roadside – another reason why the more basic Indian buses have no glass in the side – windows – I had thought it was just for ‘air-conditioning’. Musing on the journey, I started a list of rules for driving in India.