And the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. And the wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long. As apt and profound as these lyrics are, they only describe 75% of the journey from Munnar to Madurai, for the wheels also jerked up and down, up and down, all day long, such are the potholes on the thrilling-but-Jesus-Christ-that’s-a-steep-drop Western Ghats roads. And as uncomfortable and terrifying as this was, the jerkiness massaged my back better than any Ayurveda specialist could. The moral of this incredible story, then, is to save your hard-earned rupees by shunning the spa in favour of travelling on local rattletraps, which will (eventually) refresh and rejuvenate with the added bonus of getting you somewhere you need to be. The downside is that you’ll be contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of a traditional millennia-old medicinal practice; a reason to visit south India in itself. Still, swings and roundabouts.
