Mermaid Hotel Munnar

We had a great drive up into the mountains. The drive up was curvy and we stopped a few times to look at rubber trees, spice plants, and waterfalls.

The Dew Drops Home stay is quiet and the temp has cooled down into the 80s. There are occasional rains, but nothing sustained. The result is a misty mountain experience. The guest house is located at above 5000 ft elevation. Barb and I ...

... we visit the dam that has created the large lake in the area and then do some speed boating on the lake. We were a little leery about the speed boating but decided to accept his suggestions and we were all glad we did. As we walked across the dam we saw the lake on our left and the narrow valley on our right with the dam spillway providing water for the valley's river. And 15 minutes of speed boating for $6 is pretty good. The area around the ...

... jumper was still wet(if not wetter) from the day before. The air was so misty and humid up here that the clothes were not drying at all, so we handed them in that morning to get dried and some laundered, and were driving around in wet rain gear that soon dried in the wind...
We didn;t even make it to the sandalwood forest about 20-30km from the national park, because we did not have enough fuel. So all in all it did not seem like we did much today, but it felt like a full day ...

... drive in the tuk-tuk. He passed the test and was allowed to drive us all home with the driver as a passenger. With one last day to kill we all went for yet another hike. Roi and Lioara love to pack around fruit (Watermelon or Pineapple) so between all the tea huts and fruit stops it was very leisurely way to check out the lush country side of Munnar.

... and then squeezed through a mangle before being hung to dry, and finally smoked for a week. JOEL:There was a beautiful 2 week old calf at the spice farm who we fell for - he could melt the coldest heart ( would've like to take him with us but it didn't seem practical). On the way to munnar we stopped every 10 minutes or so to get out and see fields of pineapples, grapefruit trees, orange groves, papayas, jack-fruit, tapioca plants and ...

... floating, with such a sensuality about them? The women here are different. They are more rotund in shape and definately do not glide. We have a theory for this. It's all that coconut oil and coconut milk here! The cooking is very different as well. The food has a different smell and even the textures are different. They use much more spices in their cooking. Personally, I find for example the briyani to be too ...

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have wonderful news to share with you - I have reached a major milestone in my life. It was something that I had been looking forward to for a long time and I feel as though I'm a new man after having done it. It was more difficult than Kilimanjaro, more intense than biking the world's most dangerous road in Bolivia, and more unnerving than eating a plate of brains in Morocco. It wasn't easy, but I'm ...

... ll *ll enjoy it too! Anyhow, we "trekked" through * golf course consisting of scrubby dry gr*ss *nd s*ndpits for "greens", * coffee *nd c*rd*mom pl*nt*tion, *nd v*rious f*rmer's p*ddy fields. I think he *sked permission from the owners, but I c*n't be too sure *s sometimes he would do things th*t m*de me wonder....such *s picking up * stick when we he*rd dogs b*rking *nd s*ying "very d*ngerous"! Or when we encountered other people he'd s*y "very nice people, no problem", which m ...

... and black bears might cause problems. He was armed with a rusty old hunting knife but to be quite honest I didn't much fancy his chances. Sarah was far more worried about the prospect of leeches, but with her socks tucked into her trousers and her ankles coated in tobacco powder, she emerged unscathed. On the three hour trek we saw bison, barking deer, monkeys and Malabar giant squirrels. The closest we got to the more dangerous beasts was spotting some bear ...

... vorzugsweise in der Klobürste oder gleich in der Toilette einnisten, massenhaft Silberfischchen, die alles aus Papier anknabbern (auch Bücher), Ameisen, Mäuse und gelegentlich eine Kakerlake; ein Einzelgänger - zum Glück! Die Affenhorden haben sich glücklicherweise noch nicht allzu lang auf unserem Grundstück aufgehalten, denn die sind mir nicht ganz geheuer. Am 10.12. fahren wir mit dem Nachtzug nach Chennai zum ELM Mitarbeitertreffen. Da wir "Inder" nur ein sehr kleiner Haufen sind, wir ...