Hotel JC Grand Kodaikanal

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The walks were accompanied by a terrific symphony of bird songs. Because of that, we choose to walk in the mornings around 6:30 - 730 and again near sundown. We wish we had our pal John Spencer here to help us spot and identify the various birds. We met John last year in Guatemala. He runs ablog at www.bajabirder.com John lives in southern Baja Mexico. Check out his camerawork.

... beautiful wild flowers, and more tahr. But no other animals. We did, however, encounter many young Keralans and they were quite friendly and eager to practice a little English. As we left the park we sampled some local delights: "Home-Made Chocolate" aka fudge, roasted corn with marsala spices and spiced roasted cashews. While the corn could have been sweeter, the fudge and cashews were very good.

From the park we drove to a tea ...

... trip management to let us have a late checkout the next day). We have a a lovely day yomping through the most amazing scenery. Kodai is full of eucalyptus tress (that have silhouettes like cowslip) and gum trees, and black pepper, raspberries and lemon balm grow everywhere. Its nature in all its wonder, (Wez, you need to get here and tree perv) and I'm in heaven taking pictures. The cloud rolls in and encloses you in misty solitude, then it rolls ...

... who were a real head **** and thats was about it really, very elusive I know, but all was good in the Kodai hood. On the way down the mountains back to Madurai I realised that I will have to come back here, there was a plain anda great big dam and it's was amazing. There were loads of plants I have never seen before and everywhere was a ...

... fourth group of Indian tourists, the fog had moved in and eclipsed entirely the view. Keeping in mind that this is not so much as fog, but that literally I am in the clouds here. Transition to weather at this point. Many people come to Indian hillstations to escape the scorching summer sun of the plains and concrete jungles that thrive below, especially in the summer months when temperatures and humidity can be unbearable. That is a good escape indeed. The ...

... soon noticed that nothing was flat. Wherever you go...it's up or down. We ended up in Bryant Park for lunch. It serves as a practical centre for education on Ornamental Horticulture with various methods of training, pruning, budding, grafting, potting seed collection, etc. We then walked Coaker's Walk. It is a narrow pedestrian path, constructed by Lt. Coaker in 1872, a one ...

... cute little girls (though Myra would say: " I am not little!" - and right she is!), and those of you who have seen them will most certainly agree. In the middle of the year Ulrike surprised all of us with real good news, and we are now expecting our third child which, if the German doctors should be correct, will be a boy. During our furlough in Germany we therefore (that is in particular Ulrike) have purchased suitcases full of boys cloths as we do not want to dress him in pink and ...

Erin and I hired a driver from Kumily to Munnar for Rs1600. Munnar is a city nestled in the mountains and is entirely surrounded by tea plantations. We chose to hire a driver because the drive up is reputed to be spectacular, and we weren't disappointed. The last 30-40Km gave some of the most fantastic scenery of the trip, with rolling hills, lake-filled valleys and mist ...

... We got our accomadation sorted not going to mention the hotel as I would recommend it to even my worst enemy but it had one redeeming point we were right beside Sri Meenakshi temple and the view from the roofstop was impressive. The next thing was to organise a seat on a bus to Mysore as the temple didn't reopen till 4pm so we had decided to be productive , However it was so productive noone wanted to help in anyway ,It was like drawing blood ...

... Opf** ford**t. Bislang hatten wir imm** noch das Gefühl die KIS, sei an d** Spitze von solchen Machenschaften v**schont, da d** Vorstand sich int**national zusammensetzt, ab** da hat es in d** letzten Zeit einige V**schiebungen gegeben, die es ein** indischen Gruppe in Chennai **möglicht hat, Macht zu **greifen. Leid** läuft alles unt** dem Deckmantel "Christentum". - Wir sind uns schon bewusst, dass wir wohl eh** in das lib**ale Lage d** Christenheit gehören, ab** es gibt doch ...