Back to reality

What a great weekend it has been.  Thursday through Sunday were spent perusing the tourist town of Kodaikanal, located in the Palni Hills, which was approximately a 5.5 hour drive southwest of Thanjavur.  This includes the 2-hour trek up the winding, weaving mountainous roads, which luckily occurred at night (because, quick reminder - people drive on the opposite side of the road as in the States, and I happened to be sitting on the side of the vehicle that came within inches of falling off the cliff.  Oddly enough, it reminded me of a crazy drive across Washington state with my parents a few years ago, with my dad pointing out gorgeous views [while driving] and the rental car swerving towards the edge of the mountain...  Off on a tangent, my bad.).

Anyway, once we made it to the top (about 7000 feet, I believe), we were greeted with some cold, damp weather, which was pretty sweet, considering we've been used to 100+ F temps in Thanjavur.  After getting a quick tour of the homestay, we enjoyed some "take away" (i.e., take out) food from a local restaurant called the Royal Tibet, which was followed immediately by some sleep.

As mentioned in my earlier post, we spent the next day (Friday) hiking around the city with the owner of our homestay, Shaheed.  He took us through some gorgeous waterfalls, past a brick fence protecting a pear orchard, and to a local secret that provided us with great views of the valley.  Unfortunately, thunderstorms started soon after we departed from the spectacular (though cloudy) view and walked several miles in the pouring rain.  [Tip for future India travelers: bring a raincoat if you plan on going to the mountains.  And shirts with long sleeves.]

Dessa, me, Erin R.

After working up an appetite from the hike, we went and enjoyed some biryani, which was fantastic, and despite being soaking wet and freezing cold, I decided to splurge and get some Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream!  The gang took over downtown Kodaikanal and spent hours perusing local stores and picking up some souvenirs and necessities for the weekend (read: party pants [i.e., Hammer pants] and long-sleeved shirts) before hitting up The Carlton Hotel for dinner and drinks.  I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed the "awesome" American pop tunes being played, as our group collectively sang some N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morissette, Britney Spears, Nickelback, and Blink 182 tunes while indulging on a dinner of delicious bar snacks that included fresh fruit and vegetables, masala peanuts, and potato chips.  I'm pretty sure everyone thought we were crazy.

The next morning, we again enjoyed a delicious meal of omelets, toast (well, sans toast for me), coffee and tea before we headed out for another day of hiking.  We decided to try to go back to Shaheed's top secret location to catch a glimpse of the valley without as much cloud cover, and boy am I glad we did.  After a minor incident with some monkeys, we made it to the edge of the cliff and enjoyed the absolutely stunning views.

That's as close as I could get to the edge of the cliffs!

So grateful to Shaheed for his hiking suggestions!

We then headed a few minutes down the road to check out a tourist attraction called Dolphin's Nose, which is a rock protrusion that provides fantastic views of the valley below.  Let's just say getting down (and back up) the path to this tourist attraction was crazy intense, with steep descents lined with "stairs" of tree roots and rocks, and lined with rest stands serving fruit, sodas, masala tea, and even Arun ice cream and other goodies. I'm just glad they didn't charge me to sit at every shop along the way up, or I would've lost a lot of Rupees that day!  From Dolphin's Nose, we were able to get a closer look at the village of Vellagavi, which apparently is only reachable by foot.

Dolphin's Nose.  Loaded with tourists and photographers.

Megan, Shawn, and Leslie enjoying the views.

Our driver decided to accompany us on the hike!! (Side note: he was also our driver to Pondicherry!)

Megan and Shawn ventured out onto Dolphin's Nose!

Village of Vellagavi, which is only reachable by foot.

Delicious trail-side snacks. (Bri - note the Thums up!)

Why yes, you can get delicious ice cream snacks along the path from h-e-double hockey sticks.

After the utterly exhausting treks, we headed back to town for lunch at a Punjabi restaurant.  I'm so glad my classmates are pro-"family style meals," so we can all try new things and expand our palates for Indian cuisine!  Although I've become addicted to butter chicken (or paneer) masala, it's nice to try out the other curries and deliciousness that my friends are brave enough to order!  Post-lunch involved even more shopping (surprise, surprise) which means I've now stocked up on lots of souvenirs (if I can bare to part with them).  We then hit up The Carlton for some delicious bar snacks and wandered around the city to enjoy even more Indian food, where I manned up and tried mutton for the first time (thanks again to Shawn for 1) letting me try his food, and 2) steering me away from the non-muscle [i.e., organ] part of his meal.).

1. Note the Budweiser on the table.  Kind of fitting for a group of St. Louis students, no?
2.  Believe it or not, we're actually talking about school/public health topics!

All-in-all, great weekend.  Now, however, we're back in Thanjavur and have to get back to work, as our next presentation and paper are due in less than two weeks.  How did it already get to be crunch time!?!

Wishing everyone at home an early Happy 4th of July!  I'll keep you all updated on the shindigs we have planned for tomorrow (spoiler alert: party pants [i.e., Hammer pants] may be involved).