Lake Palace Hotel Thekkady

... certified place. I also tried Nasyam, which is medicated oil down the nostrils. It was okay; but my curiosity of Ayurvedic treatments has expired.

Back at the inn, I decide to retire early as I have an early start the next morning at 5 am to do a jungle jeep safari and hike at the nature reserve Periyar (which hosts a wild tiger reserve). I enter the bathroom and <doom music cue> find...a black spider the size of my palm. This is ...

... i thought was quite symbolic of shedding layers in our lives. The teacher quickly took it away and through it in some bushes. The food was superb and included all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables and traditional Indian, basic vegaetarian dishes. Some people were scavengers and would run from the dhamma hall and jump onto the food table like seagulls, stacking up their stainless steel plates and leaving the left overs for those at the end of the line. I was ...

... mountain roads are very curvy (road signs say "series of bends ahead") and narrow, and often in bad condition. I just had my camera out to take a picture of the winding road ahead when I heard 2 horns and got a picture of a big public bus nose-nose with our van. We had to back up a ways to find a place wide enough to pass. The spice garden was wonderful. Ravi planned to get there after 5pm so the masses of tourists ...

... have done with the socks when trekking in Sikkim. Apart from the animals, we got to taste some of the edibles growing in the jungle; these included wild chillies (hot hot), small dates, coffee, wild cardamom and jack fruit etc. It was a good day only slightly nerve wracking when he disappeared for about 10 minutes. We really didn't want to be stranded in the middle of the jungle. Anyway, he had ...

... of oil a day, all things considered, while the average American consumes 26 gallons, but I only say that to show how well-read I am). If they'd asked me, I'd say it's totally sensible in these times of humongous crude-oil price increases that the price of fuel go up a little bit, lest the Indian government be as bankrupt as our own, but they didn't ask me. They didn't ask the Communist party either, and that's why the Communist party is mad and that ...

... couple at dinner, fit-looking Brits who looked to be in their early 60s. We engaged in the usual friendly conversation. What was their story? Where were they from? As we'd guessed, they were from Britain, and they'd been up north where they'd "done some climbing". Eager to show off our Anglophilia and globe-trotting ways, we told them about our visit to the Lake District, and our near-successful assault on 2,700 foot Coniston Old ...

... India's crowded roads, with the horn sounding every fifteen seconds, I have finally managed to sort out what the specific horn signals mean: One beep: I'm here! Two beeps: I'm coming around a blind corner Two beeps: I'm behind you Two beeps: I'm behind you, move over (sometimes works on tik-tiks, slow cars and pedestrians; rarely works on trucks and buses) Two beeps: I'm behind you, and I'm going to pass you Two beeps ...

... were great - they were ice lollies dipped in orange flavoured syrup. All the ladies all wear saris. They are so beautiful. The food here has been delicious, I love Tandoori Nan best. Surya Samudra was so nice, the swimming pool was deep and it overflowed. We brought beautiful sarongs on the beach. There was another beach with a mad dog. It started to go mad and chase us. Mummy had her sarong on and the dog tried to get her sarong. We were scared, but it was okay in the end ...

... huge wild elephants came out of the jungle and walked slowly to the lake shore. Everyone was very excited about it. I took a couple pictures and didn't really worry about it since I was going to trek deep in the jungle and I was surely going to get much closer to them. So I thought... Little that I knew, those two were going to be the only ones I saw the whole day. Useless to say there were no ...

... make him/her proud, who is not pregnant with something to produce, to give birth to something new and beautiful, to makethe existence richer. There is not a single person who has come into the world empty" With thoughts such as these, I continue to look inward while smiling outward and hopefully I will be able to take home with me the many revelations and discoveries that I am constantly making on this physical and spiritual journey through India...