South Tamil Nadu

We just arrived in Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India. HOT and humid but they say summer is an oven here. The Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea meet the Indian Ocean here. Our room has a nice view of the ocean which has a nice turquoise color and a very rocky shoreline.

On the way here we stayed at a fishing village and walked the docks. The fishermen were like most other folks here - loved posing for photos and then looking at the result. A lot of fun because everyone starts laughing and the ever present back and forth head bobbing.

We also detoured way back off the main roads to a bird sanctuary. All the locals told us there were no birds because there had been no rain for a couple of years. The place where a large lake should have been had a pond of water and a small stream. Goats were being grazed on the rest of the lake bottom, but we did get some good photos of about five birds we had not seen before. White Ibis below.

Sikkim Happiness Home

> We were in Gangtok in November visiting the Sikkim Happiness Home SHH and the girls who live there. We were there during Diwali and they had made a huge beautiful Mandala for the holiday on the floor. Made from colored flour. The whole time we were there for several nights individual girls continued to add things to the work of art.
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Some Guest Houses

Lalit has selected some exceptional places for us on this trip!  From pretty cottages in an orchard next to the Lion Reserve where we could hear Lions roar early in the morning and in the evening just over there in the reserve. "look around before you start out of your cabin". 

Then there were the Great Heritage properties like the Orchard Palace in Gondal in Gujarat. We stayed in the Royal family's guest house in Gondal. Their personal palace and collection of antique cars was behind our place which is called the Orchard Palace.  Just 6 or 7 rooms but spread out in a beautiful palace of large sitting rooms and expansive porches.  The staff were in starched Kaki uniforms with red beret style hats.  Perfect english.  A knock on our door at 7:15 pm was to inform us that the king had requested an additional vegetable dish be served tonight and that the Queen says it will take her until 8:00 to have dinner ready.  The staff explained that the Queen liked to cook and that the food served to us was also what they were eating in their private residence.

There was also the old palace in town that was centuries old and the only people allowed to tour the place were the hotel guests or with special permission.  So in touring the old palace, we found a big construction project underway at the old palace - a set being built for a Bollywood movie!  Fun! The double door open up into our room.  The porch goes all the way around the building.

We also stayed at The Bungalow at the Beach in Tranquebar with the same high -- really high ceilings, wonderful woodwork, huge tall doors, wood and marble floors, and few spread out rooms.  This is called a non hotel hotel.  The same owner has a chain of these heritage hotels that all look wonderful.

Impossible to capture the huge room.  The door opens on the outside porch that wraps around the building and looks directly onto the ocean and the old Danish town and fort at Tranquebar. 

> Lalit has selected some exceptional places for us on this trip! From pretty cottages in an orchard next to the Lion Reserve where we could hear Lions roar early in the morning and in the evening just over there in the reserve. "look around before you start out of your cabin".
>
> Then there were the Great Heritage properties like the Orchard Palace in Gondal in Gujarat. We stayed in the Royal family's guest house in Gondal. Their personal palace and collection of antique cars was behind our place which is called the Orchard Palace. Just 6 or 7 rooms but spread out in a beautiful palace of large sitting rooms and expansive porches. The staff were in starched Kaki uniforms with red beret style hats. Perfect english. A knock on our door at 7:15 pm was to inform us that the king had requested an additional vegetable dish be served tonight and that the Queen says it will take her until 8:00 to have dinner ready. The staff explained that the Queen liked to cook and that the food served to us was also what they were eating in their private residence.
>
> There was also the old palace in town that was centuries old and the only people allowed to tour the place were the hotel guests or with special permission. So in touring the old palace, we found a big construction project underway at the old palace - a set being built for a Bollywood movie! Fun!
>

South India Photos

Some ladies in Tranquebar an east coast fishing village where many hundred people 

Were lost in the 2007 Tsumani.  The damage is still very evident in the village.  These ladies wanted Susan to take their photo and wanted to talk as best we could.

>People saying good bye after a coffee stop on the way to a bird sanctuary in South East 

Tamil Nadu.  The young man in the middle made our coffee.  South Indian Drip Coffee is the way to go. The old man on the right had a great time during our visit, and we thought he was going to just come with us as we drove off waving.  

Fwd: More photos

>One of the ladies wanting Susan to have something gold.
We think the real issue was she didn't have the gold heart 
You see around her neck which means I'm married.  These are strung on
And never taken off.

An Egyptian Vulture hanging out at the royal palace in Mysore.  The king had died

Last week and the ceremonies are today so the palace is closed.  We got in the day before closing.

Some of the old dynasties survived the British by joining them so they were left in place but lost their power after independence in 1947. Their palaces tend to be kept very well since all the property and wealth stayed in the family. 

 The royals that resisted the British were wiped out so no blood line exits now and the palaces belong to the state.

Fwd: Mysore area

A Giant squirrel in Nagarhole National Park

Beautiful cattle we are seeing all along the roads

> We are in Hassan and just a few days from flying out of Delhi. South India has definitely been a very good place to see. It is not at all like north India in many ways. We have a new driver today and the old driver Kumar had to leave. Babu brought a lot of much needed peace, quiet and sane driving to our trip. A really welcome change! I will try to attach several photos below.
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Ooty

The Langur monkeys are hooting early in the morning, other than that there is absolute silence except for the birds. We are on our way to Ooty and will pass through a wildlife refuge on the way. In these Nilgiri mountains our journey has slowed down in a beautiful area. Besides the forests with the large trees there are many acres of beautiful tea plantations with flowering plants along the road. A long section today was lined with large poinsettia bushes. That reminds us of Christmas that we will miss at home this year. At Ooty (an old British hill station) we are staying in a nice guest house with a very attentive staff. Lalit and our driver are staying here also because we are so isolated, which is difficult for India.

From the guest house we took a jeep at 6:30 A.M. for a few kilometer and then started walking along an area on the edge of a Tiger's Territory, but we do not enter the cat's territory proper, but watch for the Tiger. We walk through the grass covered by heavy dew or slippery frost and climb a small ridge with a fantastic view of the surroundings. No tiger and just one Samber deer but the birds, Langur monkey calls, sun rise, big rock walls all around, and big trees work together to bring a peace to the start of our day. The local guide shows us some damaged plants ... The result of the elephant herd that ranges the area also and we are also alert to the possible Leopard.

Then regretfully back to the daily issues and the tourist things. First breakfast. " lemon tea please, a pot please.". "Tea?" Yes Tea .. A pot.. Lemon tea..... A Pot? Yes and we start the hand signs. The young man flees to the kitchen and another comes to see what strange thing we want. This may go through several interactions but finally .. A pot of lemon tea arrives. We should have learned more of the local language but that is impractical since even our guide who is from Delhi has to speak English here because the folks down south speak Tamil, but are mostly pretty good with English. By the time we get back to Delhi on the 26th we will have gone through areas speaking a total of 10 different languages and Lalit says Totally Different. No or few shared words etc. Amazing!

But I made a small effort to learn some small words in Tamil starting with buttermilk because I order it often..... Something like Mor. So you see the problem. I ask for Mor .. They are expecting English and all manner of problems start so I go back to English but it is southern US accented and I ask for "buttermilk please". The panic look and the trip to find someone else to take the order starts again .. Ditto when I stick with Mor but much more can go wrong with that one. Ha! I would hate to be a waiter here!

The tourist things ... We rode the Toy train built here in the 1800s for transport to the cooler hill stations and tea plantations. Narrow gauge track and small cars and engines. A fun ride through the countryside not following the roads and without the drama of driving on these roads. Very relaxing and scenic. Then we toured a tea plantation and saw the processing of teas, bought some and moved on. Then stopped to get some oils from a local producer and back to the nest. Oh one side trip to a beautiful Catholic church where Lalit's mom was born. The family had sought shelter in the church during the partition when the Hindus and Muslims were killing each other. We took photos and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings.

Southern India has been great .. A real surprise to us and the central mountains are very nice and out of the heat and humidity.

Update from Kerala

We have been in Kerala for about a week and really miss the availability of good coffee in Tamil Nadu. But Kerala has beautiful jungle backwaters and is very tropical with beautiful birds etc. We are now in the central hill country of Kerala going to Ooty today in search of seeing a Bengal Tiger in the wild. The hills are around 4,000 - 5,000 ft so it is much cooler. We have seen at least three herds of wild elephants in the grass lands and forests in areas where they are protected. We are surrounded by tea, cardamom, coffee, rubber, and various spice plantations. Most people here speak pretty good English and we can communicate OK.

While in the backwaters area we took a 'canoe' out for about 5 hours with the guy that goes with the boat to help paddle. Well we stopped at a small village back in the rice paddies where there is no road and went into a small establishment where they were very anxious for us to try coconut beer -- a white substance in a large maybe rinsed out kingfisher beer bottle. Well it wasn't too bad and I drank about half. Susan declined. The next day right before we arrived in Thekkady - the big bad bug set off the alarm that everyone in the building was to evacuate Now! Just miserable along with fever and sweats and chills and all that goes along with that stuff. About 11 pm Lalit took me to the hospital -- I was out of it and he refused to let them do any injections because of the possibility of used needles, so we got pills and we already had tried to start with the right drug, thanks to last years list that Johnny E. had put together for us. We spent an extra night there and then resumed the schedule. All is better now but I am wondering about my judgment in drinking that "beer"! Just say No!

We are in a really nice home stay called the rose garden. The couple that own it are great.

We have stayed in some really unusual and beautiful places on this southern trip. On a future post we will update you on some of those interesting places.

South Tamil Nadu

We just arrived in Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India. HOT and humid but they say summer is an oven here. The Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea meet the Indian Ocean here. Our room has a nice view of the ocean which has a nice turquoise color and a very rocky shoreline.

On the way here we stayed at a fishing village and walked the docks. The fishermen were like most other folks here - loved posing for photos and then looking at the result. A lot of fun because everyone starts laughing and the ever present back and forth head bobbing.

We also detoured way back off the main roads to a bird sanctuary. All the locals told us there were no birds because there had been no rain for a couple of years. The place where a large lake should have been had a pond of water and a small stream. Goats were being grazed on the rest of the lake bottom, but we did get some good photos of about five birds we had not seen before. White Ibis below.

Catch Up

We have flown from Gujarat to Chennai on the east coast and driven down to several small towns along the coast. The first town was a fishing village, Mahabalipuram, where we had some really good grilled fresh red snapper and prawns. Then we visited Pondicherry, an old French colony that had an old town with French Colonial buildings. Some good food and welcoming atmosphere. We have visited some very interesting temples and historic sites along the way and stopped in a small village with mud hut/thatched roofed homes and visited some people who offered us some fresh green coconuts full of coconut water and good coconut meat.

Our guide, Lalit has to communicate with our local driver in English because the language down here is so different. We are in Tamil Nadu and it is very different. Different language, customs, dress, food and most of the people speak really good english.

We stayed in a wonderful hotel in Tranquebar. The hotel was in a beautiful old restored colonial building on the ocean next to a Danish Fort built in the 1600s. Bungalow on the Beach - "a non- hotel hotel" Beautiful place, good people, quiet place. Many Christian churches around us and a small traditional fishing village that still shows the devastation of the Tsunami in 2004(?). That left 400 dead in this small village.

http://bungalow-on-the-beach.neemranahotels.com/

We are leaving Maduri today on our way back to the ocean and further south. We visited a huge temple here and an old palace. The men wear long or short wrap arounds. As we were taken through the old market areas, where vegetables, fish and meat were being sold, men would wave and hold their child up telling me to take their photo. Or just wave with big grins. The women were almost as friendly with me and the camera but what they really want is to say hello to Susan and ask questions or just stare and smile at her.

South India has been a really wonderful relaxed place to visit!

D & S

Rann of Kutch Area

Gypsy working grain.

Going into a village on a camel cart causes a lot of interaction with the locals.  We purchased some embroidery from the lady in orange walking toward us.  Notice the necklace on the water buffalo.  Many cows and Buffalos are wearing jewelry!

Walking toward Pakistan on the salt flats.

We were in the desert area of southwest Gujariat doing some wildlife tours and some shopping for local crafts from the villages and gypsies in the area.

The Rann is a fascinating place and the sight of salt flats disappearing into the distance and salt lakes with flamingoes and sea birds was fascinating.

Gir National Park

We are currently in Gujarot. This area is full of gypsies and tribal art, you can go to individual homes and buy directly from the artists. We have goodies to bring home.

Gir National is one of the last places to see the Asiatic Lion in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_lion

We stayed in a lodge that had small cabins spread through an orchard just a hundred yards from the park boundary. So they cautioned us about watching when we walk around. We only saw some jackals out there in the morning and they shied away.

We climbed into a small jeep at about 3 in the afternoon and went into the park for the ride around to find lions. The first indication of lions was a young herder with cows, water buffalo and a camel hurrying them through the jungle. He told our guide that a group of lions -- two males and nine females were trying to get one of the animals so he was hu trying them back to his village. His village was a Maladharis village. Surrounded by the brush and stick fence with gates. They live in thatch roof buildings. The information in the park said that they loose about 30 percent of their livestock to lions each year.