This was the border for Karala – so now, we were going back into the state of Tamilnadu (tam – ill – na – do). Tamil is a local Hindu language and ‘nadu’ means country – so the name stands for Tamil Country. There were mountains surrounding the entire valley.
We stopped for gas here. India has Petrol (unleaded), Speed Petrol (high grade unleaded), Diesel and Hi-Speed Diesel (high grade diesel). Here’s a picture of the gas prices over here….
Per Liter Per Gallon
Speed $1.20 $4.54
Petrol $1.15 $4.35
Speed Diesel $0.89 $3.37
Diesel $0.85 $3.22
We continued thru the valley and got interrupted by a heard of cattle crossing the street. It still amazes me how animals roam free over here. You see cows everywhere – in the middle of the road, on the side, under trees – and today, we even saw donkeys and horses roaming free.
About a half hour later, we began our climb up the other mountain. This mountain was different than before – because it is all natural. There is nothing planted by humans – everything is as it was since nature created it. Much more raw, but still beautiful. Soon, we began to see monkies in the trees and beside the road. I wasn’t quick enough to catch them on camera at first, but I finally got lucky. Our driver stopped and got us some “forest bananas”. They were really tiney (about two bites), but tasted delicious.
We reached our destination – Kodaikannal – at 3:45pm. We took a short break to freshen up and then headed out for our tour. First stop was Pillar Rock. It’s a part of the mountain that shoots straight up to the sky like a pillar. I was only able to get a photo of the bottom of it because the clouds were so low that they covered the upper half. On the way to our next stop, we spotted several monkeys by the side of the road holding babies.
Next stop was Green Valley View where we should have had a perfect view of the mountains – but again – the clouds blocked most of it – however, the monkeys were there looking for food.
Last stop for today was Bryant Park. It supposed to be closed to tourists, but our driver cheated and got us in. It was gorgeous with fountains and flowers everywhere.
We got back to the room around 8pm and had a quick dinner. Mom and I had learned a few Indian terms along our journey and we've been able to remember them thanks to mom's "word association" technique. These are Tamil terms: "naundri" means Thank You (think laundry with an 'n'); "banyon tee" (think Paul Bunyon); our first driver's name was "Yarul" (ya-rule...think Yahoo). It sounds silly but it works.
Time to get some rest for another long drive tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll find an internet connection along the way
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