Nilgiri-India

2024.06,

Following a sign that reads “Galaxy Valley”, the motorcycle headed deeper into the mountains. Unlike Japan's satoyama, where the trees are thickly overgrown, the mountains here are covered with tea trees as far as the eye can see.

Among the blue-green tea trees, one can sometimes see tea-picking women dressed in bright pink and yellow. As I pass a woman coming up the slope with a half-mat sack full of harvested tea leaves on her head, she smiled at me, and I was pleased to see her. The sweet aroma of freshly harvested tea leaves wafted through my nose, and the mere fact that I was in a mountainous area where tea was all around me lifted my spirits.