Munnar - "I Gotta Go Tea"

Tea. Tea, Tea......
That's right, we're surrounded by Tea.
Up in the mountains it is much cooler and the perfect environment for Tea to grow and provides an opportunity walk amongst the clouds.
Okay a couple of phrases to match the photos:
"Moos in the mist."
"Temple in the Tea."

Have a look at the photo with our driver; Mani, who had the unenviable job of not only driving us around, but driving over all the pothole ridden Indian roads.

The photo of Shivani outside with all the stalls is just more evidence that you cannot fault the India sense for an entrepreneurial opportunity. At any given spot for sightseeing you'll see various stall holders touting their wares.

Cochin to Munnar

We stoppeed at the old fort town of Cochin, which was very quaint and like stepping back into an old fishing village. Cochine is famous for it's use of Chinese fishing nets, which we went to check out. We quickly left though, without even so much as a photo, due to the fact the smell of rotting fish was so overpowering. The fishermen had on display their catch of the day for people to buy, but didn't have any of it in refridgeration - lovely!
We carried on to Munnar; a hill station famous for it's tea plantations, aand we took some snaps along the way.
Check the mountain goat - there are loads of these all over the place here.
Buses are definitely not boring in India and here is a shot of just one of the brightly coloured buses which can be found ploughing the roads.

Waynard - Sightseeing

The scenery was beautiful; we were very high up, driving through tea plantations, stopping at lakes, waterfalls and lookouts.

Waynard and Vythiri

We headed further south and stopped at our next destination in the mountains; a cosy retreat set on a cliff top across a gorge.
We had some unexpected mischevious visitors on our balcony, who insisted on moving the outdoor furniture around at regular intervals.
The whole resort was set amongst the trees, which meant we had stunning views down into the gorge, but also meant to get to the restuarant we had to cross a very swingy swing bridge - Shivani loved it! Check out Shivani's outfit - she even follwed the theme of Robin Hood!!

Kabini - Rajiv Ghandi National Park

We then travelled by car to a place called Kabini, which in contrast to the man-made beauty of Mysore had a National Park filled with natural beauty.

We went on a jeep safari into the park and spotted a lone wild bull elephant, who actually charged our jeep when we got too close for his comfort, Monkeys, Deer, Wild Boar, Amazing Ant Hill structures and Bison. Not to mention all the fantastic birds - of the feathered variety!

In the evening we had a campfire with dancing and traditional music at the resort. As you can see from the photo; Andrew strutted his stuff much to the amusement of Shivani, who bottled it!

Mysore

We flew from Goa to Bangalore, were picked up by our driver for the next 11 days and went straight to Mysore.

We visited the famous Maharaja's Palace, which you cannot take cameras inside, so all we've got to show you are some pics of the outside. But we can assure you that it is suitably impressive with many painted panels along the walls and highly decorative columns.

We also went to Chamundi Hill and saw Sri Chamundeswari Temple and a massive Nandi (Shiva's Bull Vehicle), carved in stone. We couldn't get near it enough though, to take a clear photo, as there was some sort of festival going on, hence there is not one in this post.

On route we passed many people going about their daily lives, including this cahp with his herd of goats blocking the road.

Old Goa 2

Sorry we've not updated the blog for some time; we've been in South India, travelling through some very mountainous areas and there has been no internet access.

We are now back in Mumbai, with internet access, so prepare for an onslaught of updates in the next couple of days.

1st we'll finish off Goa.....

These pics were taken as we did a mini tour of Goa.