Koddaikanal

Oh wow. Today has been a very go with the flow type day.
We awoke at Chandra's beautiful home and ate a big breakfast with the sounds of the school children playing outside. The breakfast was sweet, with bread that was almost like french bread and this sweet dish with raisins. (So good) and idly like we had at Usha's and dosa (huge Indian style crepes) and avocado (butter fruit) and papaya with sugar. Yum! Chandra was very sweet, always wanting to feed us more. There were also balls of fried dough that I liked a lot. The cook was very friendly, smiling and nodding with her cute son running around, helping her.
Chandra told us after breakfast we should pack a small bag to spend a few days in Koddaikanal, a town in the mountains. We hopped in the Jeep with our backpacks and cameras and began out journey. The countryside scenes were so exciting. I was turning around to watch out the windows as the amazing scenery passed by. Calling out to Kelsey to take pictures of everything, the man carrying leaves on his head, the group of cows, the temple, the colorful buildings and laundry, the scenes of plains and mountains in the distance, the people working in the fields.
"Did you get it Kelsey?? Wait don't miss the girl with the water on her head! Gimme the camera. Look! Goats!" The sun was shining brightly as we sped through farm village, after farm village. The wind keeping us cool, as we tried to capture the beautiful scenery of coconut trees and huge banana leaves and the bustling village market places full of fruit, people and shops.
Our jeep began to climb the mountain and I flung myself across Kelsey's lap, trying to get a better view of the fields, lake and mountains below. To email to my family how spectacular the view was from the road. There were monkeys along the street. Little monkey families, with babies, eating fruit and paying no attention to cars. A mother monkey grabbed a baby one to stop it from running in the street to get a piece of fruit though. As we climbed the mountain, it began to get much colder and we started to wish we had brought our sweatshirts. The mountains were beautiful though, tons of flowers of all different colors lined the road, purple and white flowers, those trumpet flowers, bogenvia and lantana all around us. People walked all along the side of the road and we honked whenever we went around a corner. The ride up was so exciting, as it got colder, and more like a rainforest jungle.
When we arrived at Konnaikanal we saw all the houses climbing up into the green mountain side, the fog and clouds all around, floating making the air white and cool and wet. It was unlike anything I've ever seen.
We bounced along in our jeep into the cold fog and beautiful green trees. In the town we stopped off at the "Koddai Club" a remnant of the British colonial missionary history that surrounds us in the town. This 'gold club,' where we had lunch is like an old British country club, with no brits or westerners to be found, just western culture everywhere, and lists of British presidents of the club since it's founding in the 1800's. We went to Koddai International school, which looked magical and also ominous, emerging with it's old hogwarts-esque stone walls and trees from the fog. Here we toured and learned how it was originally a school founded for American children of missionaries in the 1800's but is now an IB international school, still with a Christian emphasis. Beautiful architecture and an impressive library made this school quite interesting.
We learned there had been no preparations for us to stay here, as it was a last minute decision so we were lucky our contacts at the school, Barbara, from Canada, and Esther from Koddikanal were able to find us a sweet stone cottage to stay in for the next four days. We are in a very nice compound here, near the home of our friendly helper, the manager of the property and his family. His wife is named Rani and is very sweet with big, pretty eyes. And his name sounds like Jason, and he speaks english. We met Rani's mother today as well who was very kind and friendly. It's just us up here in these beautiful, cold, foggy mountains. They brought us coffee this afternoon which we sat and drank in the garden till it began to rain. We also tried the famous pears, which were different but still quite delicious, maybe even better than regular pears.
We've been told to beware of the bison that come to our cottage, whose tracks we can see outside. It's definetly an adventure everyday. Tonight Rani is making us chappatis.
And Kelsey and I are wrapped up in blankets in our little cottage in the mountains. :)

We learned more about the orphanage we are going to next week, Bethania. We're so excited to meet the children, but for now we're learning so much and just trying to soak up all these new experiences.

Peace.