Another Canadian has joined me for the last leg of my journey in India. Many of you were in on all of the lies that kept his visit a secret, so you may already know that Kelly showed up on Wednesday morning! I had begun the day with my routine of going to the gym, and returned extremely sweaty to my apartment where I opened the door to see Kelly sipping a coffee on the balcony. The only words I could muster were “Shut-up!”. It was quite the surprise and it took me a good 20 minutes to be sure I wasn’t going crazy or dreaming. The timing is perfect for him to be here since otherwise I would have been a major fifth wheel on the trip to the jungle and beach, where we both are currently having a blast!
Right now we are relaxing at a resort right on the beach in Calicut, Kerala. The group of us arrived here yesterday after a long drive from the jungle. We spent 3 days chilling with the animals in India’s 12,000 acre forest in the foothills of the Nilgiris (“blue mountains”). My parent’s friends Norwyn & Sandra and Hugh & Vivian live in a compound right in the jungle where they and Rob & Dot stayed. Meaghan, her kids, and Kelly joined me down the road at Jungle Retreat. This place is such a part of the jungle that we had to be escorted on our walks from the restaurant to our room at night just in case we ran into one of the local leopards, elephants, bears or snakes. Luckily we didn’t have any unexpected interactions with these animals, but we did get to sit on a veranda in the jungle as we watched bison drink from a pond and were greeted by a wild elephant that came within 20 feet of where we sat. An early morning hike had also been planned for one of the days where we could have come across anything from a flying squirrel to a tiger, but a down pour of rain cancelled those plans. That didn’t matter much after a couple drives in the area were enough to bring us across 6 other elephants and loads of menacing monkeys and spotted deer.
We also made the terrifying trek up one of the mountains to Ooty where my parents both went to boarding school. I say it’s terrifying because to reach the school we had to drive around 36 hair pin bends up to 5,000 feet above sea level. There is not much to keep a car from falling off the side of the mountain other than a few randomly dispersed barriers (which we later discovered are only put up after an accident has already happened there – very comforting). There is even a record of deaths displayed on signs as you drive up. But I have to say it is the most amazing and entertaining drive ever. Kelly would have paid a million dollars to be able to drive a rickshaw or motorcycle up the road. Needless to say, we all made it up and spent the day visiting my parent’s school, eating fantastic dosa at a hole in the wall and shopping at the market. The drive down was just as insane, but we survived that as well.
So after our 6 hour drive from Bangalore to the jungle, we had another 5 hour trek to Calicut where have all fallen in love with the ocean. I am incredibly sun burned from a quick tanning session at Jungle Retreat (apparently the sun is much stronger when you are on a mountain), so tanning is not a priority for me.
The internet is sparse here so I will post some pictures when I get a chance and tell you more about how much fun my mom, Dot and Kelly are having as they experience the chaos that is India. They all love the traffic, the food, the shopping and of course the cows. Hard to believe we will all be back in the Canadian winter in less than a week!
An update on the bees:
For those of you interested, we dealt with bees the night after Tej’s attempt failed. Sadly but successfully the bees have all become victims of a chemical that made them drop dead on the spot! I’ll post a picture when I get a chance.
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