Hi everybody,
We left Munnar for Mysore after spending three nights in Munnar. The problem was that it took twelve hours traveling to get to Mysore so we broke the trip up into two days and spent the night in between at a fancy hotel in Coimbatore. In Mysore we went to tour the Maharaja’s palace (now it’s just a museum). It was amazingly over the top and impressive. The tour we took of it was pretty interesting. At night they light up the palace and its grounds with 96,200 lightbulbs and it is amazing to see. I got sick later that day and stayed mainly in bed the rest of our time in Mysore (I still have a cough).
After Mysore we caught a cab to Hassan. On the way we stopped at a town called Sravanabelagola. It is famous for having the world’s tallest monolithic statue, a naked Jain deity named Gomateshvara. It is amazing to see but to get to it we had to climb six hundred stone steps up a hill in the midday heat with only thin socks to protect our feet from the heat. It was such a terrible hike that after about thirty steps Colin felt so bad that he couldn’t go any further so we had to take turns staying at the bottom with Colin while the others went to the top. The statue was reeeaaally big and looked sort of Buddhist.
Hassan is a little town with not much to do. We used it as a base to go see the towns of Belur and Halebid. They both are home to huge 900 year old temples. They both are covered top to bottom in amazing carvings. (They are really well preserved and the worst damage is from a Muslim raid 700 years ago.) Every carving is different and portrays gods and scenes from Hindu mythology. In the Halebid temple we saw these two HUGE statues of Nandi the bull that were nine feet tall! They were both amazing (the temples not the cows). Today we left and caught a bus to Bangalore. It broke down in the middle and the bus filled with smoke so all the passengers had to get off and wait along the road for other passing buses to Bangalore. We’ve got three days left in India and we are spending them in Bangalore.
Goodbye!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Periyar and Munnar
Hi everybody,
We left Varkala and caught a TERRIBLE, twisty, stomach churning car ride to Kumily. We got in pretty early so we went to go ride elephants. We took a half hour ride through a spice plantation. At first it was sort of scary because the elephant swayed side to side when it walked, and once I was afraid that it would walk of the path. Once we got used to it, it was a lot of fun. The elephant’s skin feels so weird. Though the ride was awesome, it was rather uncomfortable and I don’t think any of us will ever walk the same again. That night Mom and Dad left me and Colin to go get Ayurvedic massages. They smelled like oil for a week after it.
Kumily is right on the edge of the Periyar Tiger Preserve and the next day we went to go see it. Our plan was to go on a boat ride to see wildlife along the park’s rivers, and then take a three hour hike through the woods. While we were waiting to get on the boat a group of monkeys were running around the pavilion we were on. They were so cute and they were hilarious to watch. The boat ride itself wasn’t that great. It was mostly birds except for this one time when you could see a wild pig very far off. Colin and I had to get up early so we fell asleep on the boat. We were going to go on a hike next but it turned out that children eleven and under weren’t allowed. Instead we toured a spice/fruit/ medicinal plant plantation. I never knew that pineapples grew on these really weird looking bushes. We got to try these weird fruits called egg fruits and rose apples. Our last stop was a view point three thousand feet up looking over the state of Tamil Nadu. It was pretty amazing.
The next day we caught another horrible car ride to Munnar. Munnar is incredibly green compared to the rest of India because it’s covered in tea fields. While there we went to a tea museum. It was interesting and they gave us these really good tea samples that converted Colin and I to tea. We also went to Eravikulam National Park. The Indians have a very different idea of what national parks should be like. There is one big, paved, path that you can walk up for half an hour before being forced to turn around and walk back down the same path. Along the path there were a ton of wild goats that came so close you could touch them. I’m ending this post here and continuing in the next post.
Goodbye
We left Varkala and caught a TERRIBLE, twisty, stomach churning car ride to Kumily. We got in pretty early so we went to go ride elephants. We took a half hour ride through a spice plantation. At first it was sort of scary because the elephant swayed side to side when it walked, and once I was afraid that it would walk of the path. Once we got used to it, it was a lot of fun. The elephant’s skin feels so weird. Though the ride was awesome, it was rather uncomfortable and I don’t think any of us will ever walk the same again. That night Mom and Dad left me and Colin to go get Ayurvedic massages. They smelled like oil for a week after it.
Kumily is right on the edge of the Periyar Tiger Preserve and the next day we went to go see it. Our plan was to go on a boat ride to see wildlife along the park’s rivers, and then take a three hour hike through the woods. While we were waiting to get on the boat a group of monkeys were running around the pavilion we were on. They were so cute and they were hilarious to watch. The boat ride itself wasn’t that great. It was mostly birds except for this one time when you could see a wild pig very far off. Colin and I had to get up early so we fell asleep on the boat. We were going to go on a hike next but it turned out that children eleven and under weren’t allowed. Instead we toured a spice/fruit/ medicinal plant plantation. I never knew that pineapples grew on these really weird looking bushes. We got to try these weird fruits called egg fruits and rose apples. Our last stop was a view point three thousand feet up looking over the state of Tamil Nadu. It was pretty amazing.
The next day we caught another horrible car ride to Munnar. Munnar is incredibly green compared to the rest of India because it’s covered in tea fields. While there we went to a tea museum. It was interesting and they gave us these really good tea samples that converted Colin and I to tea. We also went to Eravikulam National Park. The Indians have a very different idea of what national parks should be like. There is one big, paved, path that you can walk up for half an hour before being forced to turn around and walk back down the same path. Along the path there were a ton of wild goats that came so close you could touch them. I’m ending this post here and continuing in the next post.
Goodbye
Friday, April 2, 2010
Greetings from Varkala, India
Hi Everybody!
From Fort Cochin we took a cab to Alleppey. Alleppey is known for its canals that you can take boats onto. We took a house boat to tour the canals. The house boats are really nice. Ours had a full size bedroom, a kitchen, and an open air living\dining room with a tv. Some house boats can be giant with restaurant-sized dining rooms and five full size bedrooms! A crew of three pilot the boat and cook all your meals for you. (They taste really good.) Most people spend the night on their boat, but we just spent the day. The canals were beautiful and you could see people’s houses and how they lived. We also passed a ton of rice paddies.
We then left to Varkula (where we are now). Varkula has a beautiful beach along the Arabian Sea, but instead of having a boardwalk there is a cliff lined with shops. The water is perfect and is awesome for boogie boarding. Colin won’t eat any Indian food so we are fattening him up at a restaurant that sells reeeaaaally good milk shakes. We spend most of our time on the beach (except for Mom who hates all things beach and spends most of her time walking along the cliff or in our air-conditioned hotel room).
I will try to post soon. (I know I say that every time and never do, but I’m sure this time will be different.) Please comment, though I know some of you are having trouble doing so.
Good bye
From Fort Cochin we took a cab to Alleppey. Alleppey is known for its canals that you can take boats onto. We took a house boat to tour the canals. The house boats are really nice. Ours had a full size bedroom, a kitchen, and an open air living\dining room with a tv. Some house boats can be giant with restaurant-sized dining rooms and five full size bedrooms! A crew of three pilot the boat and cook all your meals for you. (They taste really good.) Most people spend the night on their boat, but we just spent the day. The canals were beautiful and you could see people’s houses and how they lived. We also passed a ton of rice paddies.
We then left to Varkula (where we are now). Varkula has a beautiful beach along the Arabian Sea, but instead of having a boardwalk there is a cliff lined with shops. The water is perfect and is awesome for boogie boarding. Colin won’t eat any Indian food so we are fattening him up at a restaurant that sells reeeaaaally good milk shakes. We spend most of our time on the beach (except for Mom who hates all things beach and spends most of her time walking along the cliff or in our air-conditioned hotel room).
I will try to post soon. (I know I say that every time and never do, but I’m sure this time will be different.) Please comment, though I know some of you are having trouble doing so.
Good bye
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