Zest At Danish Sheddon Villa Ootacamund

Who are you?<br><br>It&#8217;s a good question to ask yourself, and probably not something you think of every day. Do you know who you are? What makes you tick? Do you know why you make the decisions you do, and why your life flows in the direction it does? And are you happy in your skin?<br><br>Heady stuff for a Thursday afternoon chat over tea in the hills of Tamil Nadu. I was sitting in a cozy dorm parents living room with three principals of Hebron school, Rod Gilbert (1987-95), John ...

... in Cochin. <br><br>His friend and former classmate was equally stylish and successful, with a quiet smile under a freshly shaved head. He was a Production Assitant in Mumbai working on Bollywood films. He smiled when I showed my appreciation. My late uncle was in the film business, and I know that to be a PA at his age Jarebb must be both very good and extremely lucky. <br><br>We wandered the market&#8217;s dense warren of small stalls and alleyways, butchers, spice sellers, and vendors ...

... 8217;ve never had, and I had come to rely on her for support and a laugh when things were grim. I was pleased not only with her company on the journey but also with her place in my life in India. <br> <br>Ooty is called the "Queen of the Hill Stations", and at over 2 kilometres (2286 metres) above sea level, it was as cold as it was beautiful. The bus terminal was on the edge of a long flat valley, in the middle of which was a racetrack until any I&#8217;d seen ...

... last night here that I was introduced to the Devil. We both settled into bed to watch a film and Mum had dropped off shortly before I did. <br><br>The noise was frightful. A low pitched, throaty demonic voice belonging to the depths of hell was coming from my Mother laying next to me. Obvisouly dreaming I spoke her name to try and disturb her sleep. The noise stopped and presumably the dream was over. Five minutes later it happened again ...

... green hills (reminded me of england a wee bit). The view was grand, when the clouds cleared, as you could see many wee villages down below with soft green landscape. I was shown a few homes of the Toda tribe. Only 1500 people remain of the Toda tribe today. The buffalo is scared to them. Their diet consists of rice, butter, honey, and fruit. The work in agricultural and also rent oot some of their land to others (5000 rupees for a year for a hectare). They were all ever so kind ...

... the thick brush was a rare occasion.  There was a couple that had been coming to Bandipur for 13 years, and was yet to see one, so Dennis and I lowered our expectations, and enjoyed the ride.    The first two hours of the ride went right along with this theme; we basically got shut out.  A little bit disappointed, we drove out of the park onto the exit road to go back for dinner.  As we were driving back, all of a sudden, the car suddenly stopped and our driver ...

... garden, the real appeal of the region is the surrounding countryside. We hired a local guide (another gemof a human) named Shareef. From his name you could guess he had a muslim up bringing but living in the region and growing up around foreigners (keep in mind he is now in his 40's) he developed very progressive views. Mutually separated from his wife he supported his three daughters alone, one of whom now lives unmarried with her ...

... wound tightly around bends. We had heard stories from other travellers that on similar mountain journies, people had been hanging out the bus window spewing. I was determined not to suffer such indignity. From what I did see, the hills around Ooty are green, and there are trees. I didn't see a lot else. For one, a thick mist clung to the mountain, and secondly, half-way up it started raining and we had to shut the windows. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but ...

Another afternoon with nothing planned, so one more hit of the blog just to get everything up to date, and it's hot outside so it's nice to be somewhere cool for an hour or so... After our trip to the back waters finished earlier than we thought, and our huge tip had gone almost unnoticed by our cook - it was 2 nights acommodation for us and he didn't even blink an eye... we decided to carry on up the coast to Fort Cochin, our stop off point before heading back in ...

... time and today he was absolutely beaming when he was telling me about it!!!!!!!!!), was on the phone to Paul and all he kept saying was "I'm very happy Paul, are you happy Paul? are you happy?"!!!!!!!!!! Bless!!!!!!!!!!!! Saturday was so unbearably hot here it was crazy.............. plus just as some of us were getting ready to leave to go to Ooty for the weekend the water ran out .........which to be fair is a daily/hourly occurence but the fact that I had just been swimming ...