Hey everyone. I know I've been awful with this blog thing recently. I just can't even tell you how busy my past few weeks have been! It feels like normal life back at CC where I'm constantly running around. Between classes, homework, yoga classes, life with my homestay and oh--living in India--the blog's just gotten a little lost lately. On the plus side, this week, Scott and Carol are visiting from ACM's Chicago office this week! They're absolutely wonderful and have been treating us to some delicious food these past few days. Tomorrow, they're paying a visit to my host family and we'll all have tea. This year is the 40TH ANNIVERSARY of ACM's program in India! How crazy is that?? The past few days too have been absolutely drenched--there's been a cyclone hovering over the Mumbai area absolutely drenching us in rain. After dinner out last night, Logan and I got caught in some of the heaviest rain ever, and I was drenched down to my underwear. Of course it was late and no rickshaws would take us.... ah, well, I guess that's one of those experiences that just makes this so much more "India," if you know what I mean.
Well, now that I've updated you on this crazy, crazy week, time for another blog about my fall break travels! If I remember correctly, I left off with Madurai. And if you thought the first week was crazy....
The second week was a lot more intense travel. We were finally feeling confident about being able to navigate our way around train stations and whatnot, despite our little Marathi being completely useless. We started off the second week of our travels heading up to Kodaikanal, our first hill station. Since Madurai was so completely and oppressively hot, we were looking forward to a change in scenery (and temperature). Hill Stations, like I think I mentioned a few blogs ago, were created by the British. Apparently, Indians were completely uninterested in the mountains until the Brits came. The British, however, were seriously unprepared for the heat of the Indian summer and thus, they ventured to higher altitudes to escape the heat. Not only are they cooler, but the Western Ghats (the mountain range that dominates middle India--Ghats translates literally to "steps") was also named as one of the world's most naturally biodiverse areas. The Ghats are where a lot of tea plantations are in Southern India, as well as more cold-climate fruit and vegetable farms are, where imported produce from Europe and the Americas is grown. Kodaikanal is at a whopping 6700 ft above sea level--the same as Colorado Springs--but rises up directly from one of India's hottest places, the plains of Tamil Nadu. The bus ride up into the hills was gorgeous and insane all at once. We went from dusty, sweaty, and too hot to perfectly cool, to driving through a foggy and drizzling rain that splattered into the bus from outside. We drove up and over the fog and into some of the most beautiful green hills.
When we got into Kodaikanal, we were surrounded immediately by the usual hawkers, looking to sell us on whatever hotel was nearby. Luckily for us, we got a good vibe from a nice guy wearing a Cosby sweater and ended up staying in an old British cottage, situated on the side of this hill down a steep narrow path and surrounded by flowers. We could see a whole valley from the side and we were absolutely sold on how gorgeous and surprisingly cheap it was. We spent the day wandering around the town and exploring the gorgeous lake. If you're looking through my pictures, this is the lake that looks like it should be in Upstate New York or somewhere. We were enchanted by the friendly, sweater-wearing Indians who were always willing to give us directions. We got horribly lost that night, thanks to my Rough Guides map (long story), but luckily since we drove out of the fog it was simply pleasant to walk around in and relish in the season of autumn. The next day was similarly spent, only we all made sure to buy a Cosby sweater as a souvenir. I swear, I think that each Hill Station in India simply went to a bunch of Goodwills in the US, bought every ugly sweater they could find, and turned around and sold it for 40 rupees to Indians who aren't used to temperatures falling below 70 degrees!
We tried to get on a bus the next day, but because we were white the conductor insisted that we sit--and tried to kick these three little old ladies off the bus to make room for us. We weren't having it though, and we just caught the next bus down to a small junction town called Pollachi. Pollachi was, after Bangalore, my least favorite Indian city by far. Not only did I get horribly, horribly motion sick on the drive down from Kodaikanal, but the entire city basically consisted of a giant bus station. When we got off the bus, we were instantly surrounded by three dozen people, none of whom spoke English or could point us in the direction of a hotel. I was irritated and sick and exhausted. We walked for a while trying to find a hotel because Rough Guides had absolutely nothing to say about Pollachi, and eventually stumbled on a street with a few run-down places. We took a look at a few that were insanely cheap--we're talking less than 200 rupees for all 4 of us--but we simply couldn't do it. Most of them looked like they would definitely have bed bugs and definitely didn't have showers. After some searching, we found a nicer place for about the same price that thankfully had a shower--albeit a cold bucket shower. Since we knew we wouldn't be spending much time there, we were alright with the joint.
The next morning, bright and early, we headed out at 5 AM to catch one of three government busses all day that went from Pollachi to Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary. We'd heard a lot about this Sanctuary, including that we would get to ride elephants here. Unluckily for us, the day was a rainy, drizzly one. The hour-long bus ride was, hands down, the most insane road I've ever been on. It was incredibly pot hole-ridden and one hairpin turn after another. And this bus driver was somehow just careening around the turns (while wearing, get this, coke-bottle glasses. I don't know if I've ever feared for my life quite so much). Somehow, we made it, and once we were off the bus we were surrounded by--absolutley no one. Yeah, the whole place was completely deserted. It was so, so surreal. The surroundings were beautiful--green hills with wild boars randomly running around and this awesome fog shrouding the area... but there was no one. After a little exploring, we finally came across a few park "rangers," who seemed pretty much just like bad-tempered guys with moustaches, who informed us that there was no way for us to either ride elephants or go trekking. Nate was all about trekking anyway, but they told us that the reason we couldn't trek was because the rain made the LEECHES come out. I put my foot down.
Our main options exhausted, we mostly just had to bum around this deserted sanctuary for a few hours waiting for another bus to come by. Some other apparently misinformed Indians came up to the park also and wanted to share a jeep tour with us, so we decided to go ahead and go with it. That ended up being fun, but all we saw were some chained-up elephants in a village that made for good photographs but certainly not any real "wildlife adventure." We caught the same nerve-wracking, falling-apart bus back to Pollachi midday and were then back in the same awful bus stand trying to figure out where to go next. We decided to go ahead and try to get to Ooty that day, instead of trying to stay in Pollachi again, so we hopped on three more busses and traveled the rest of that day to get to the famous Hill Station.
Ooty was much like Kodaikanal, only the bus ride was much more horrific. I was ten times as nauseous getting off the bus in Ooty as I was in Kodaikanal and I was in no mood for the hawkers to try and rip me off because I'm blonde. It was a good decision--we walked a little ways and ended up at a nice hotel with a scary staircase (it might as well have been a ladder) and giant St. Bernard. Ooty was a little colder than Kodaikanal, and a lot bigger, so we didn't do as much wandering. Instead of seeing it more as a destination in and of itself, we used it more as a jumping off point the next day to get to Mudhumalai Wildlife Sanctuary.
Mudhumalai is situated about halfway between Ooty and Mysore, so the route is pretty well fed by regular busses going back and forth, without it being overly crowded. We got incredibly lucky and ended up on a private, but still cheap, bus--complete with individual seats and enough room to stretch our legs out a bit. We got some much-needed naptime, too. We also almost missed our stop in Mudhumalai. As irritated as I get when people here try and kick other Indians out of chairs for us or try and make us pay double for a rickshaw because we're white, I am just as overjoyed when people go out of their way to make sure that we get off at the right bus stop. We hopped off and were hoping for good luck, because we realized when we got there that this was certainly not the place that lots of random hotels would be situated.
We did, in fact, get lucky again--we ran into a trekking guide who told us about this dorm system that they have at Mudhumalai that was dirt cheap. We got 4 beds in one room for 65 rs. apiece. That's about $1.30. Yeah. Anyway, we ended up sharing the building with only one other German lady who was traveling alone, and she was a great help too. We ate dinner at this house that was nearby and got to watch the park's famous domesticated elephants getting fed. The next day we were up brutually early again for a 5 km. trek through the forest in search of wild elephants and a sight of some of the park's other animals. No luck there however--obviously it had already been exhausted by our travel luck--and instead we saw some pictures of these two Swedish people who were there just a minute before us and got to see a leopard and sloth bear. The hike was nice though, and we saw some gorgeous scenery. Oh, and I got poked by this big tree that looks like a tree but acts like a cactus.
We caught the same bus that brought us to Mudhumalai to Mysore, and it was an easy ride. The last few minutes as we were coming into Mysore were filled with the famous scents of lavendar and sandalwood, and I was already in love with the place. It was neither too hot nor too cold, and on a trip filled with some extremes, it was nice to be a little in-between. We also planned on staying Mysore for a glorious 3 days, so we got to really get a sense of the city and wander around from place to place. My sense of geography there is much better because I spent some time there. We had a great time just exploring the city and especially the city's famous flower market. I've never seen so many fresh flowers in my entire life! You have to see my pictures for that to be sure. I don't even think I can describe it! The whole place just smelled like fresh blooms and people were running from place to place buying oils and incense and flowers. Mysore also has two really famous, huge palaces. I've read they're rather like Versailles, though--gorgeous on the outside with beautiful flowers, but the inside is rather dull once you've seen one room. We decided not to go for the few hundred rupees cover charge to get in and instead spent the extra cash on a nicer hotel and a few nice dinners. Mysore was a really great town and it was the perfect end to a rather hectic trip.
We planned on getting to Bangalore only a few hours before we had to catch our train back to Pune. We originally thought we'd be getting back to Pune on Sunday to get to class on Monday. Instead, we ended up getting on the right train and sitting down in the right compartment--only to find out that our train was actually booked for the next night. Baffled and more than a little embarassed, we then set out to find a hotel close to the bus station so it would be easy to get back the next day. Like I mentioned earlier, Bangalore was my least favorite city I visited... and it's because all I saw of it was a giant wall of BUSES. I'm not even joking. Apparently the traffic was "bad" because it was Diwali--aka lots of people were setting off random fireworks--but still. We literally got out of the train station and could see about 50 hotels just waiting for us on the other side of the street... but couldn't get to them. We walked for more than half an hour in one direction trying to find a crosswalk or intersection where we could get across and we simply couldn't do it. By the time we found our hotel I was exhausted and frustrated so much that we spent the whole next day bumming around in the hotel room (and then getting KFC for dinner... what?!) just trying to get rid of the traveling exhaustion!
The train back to Pune (this time on the right night) was easy and we were very happy to be back on trains after almost a solid week full of bus travel. By the time I left I was much better at several card games and a trillion times closer to Nate, Sydney and Logan. I absolutely count this experience, including the frustrations, as one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. And now, looking forward to traveling next month, I realize that I have three huge papers still to write but all I want to do is think about what NORTH India is going to be like!!
Thanks to everyone who stuck through this insanely long blog. I'll post again soon... when something as interesting as all this happens!!
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