Hi from the lovely Kodaikanal

here are the events of the last few days:

After Pondicherry, we decided to head down to a city called Tiruchirapalli (Tiruchy for short). We decided to take the train, booking online to save ourselves from having to push through the hectic lines at the train station. We couldn't print off our tickets having no printer, but we had paid already so we didn't think this would be a problem.

We hopped on the train the next morning to find that marcie had booked upper bunks in the sleeper room by accident! We sat up there, crouched with our luggage, looking over everyone's heads and trying to see out the windows from below (oh well, at least we were near the fans).

A few minutes into the 2.5 hour ride, some official comes around asking carmen for his ticket, which, of course we did not have because it was processed on the internet and could not be printed out. We tried to explain that we had already paid and all the man kept on saying was "ticket, ticket ticket!!!" anyways he brought about 4 other officials over and they started to get loud, so now everyone in the boxcar was staring at us. they told us we should always have our ticket and it does not matter that we paid and that our name was on the list and that we had the proper ID we needed...anyways so one of the officials had to escort us off the bus in the town right before our destination...

We got to Tiruchy and stayed for two nights in a dirty, dirty, dirty dark little room that left us saying "eew, eew, eew" for the first hour of being there. By the time we saw all the sights of Tiruchy, however, our room became our safe little haven and we warmed up to it quite nicely.

One time we came out of our room to find a large crowd of people sitting in the common area. We thought they were waiting to eat something but the hotel owner told us that they were there to see the Doctor, who visits once a month and they all meet at the hotel to see him. He uses a spare hotel room to examine his patients. huh.

While in Tiruchy, we went to a few temples, where we had to take off our shoes and climb these huge stone steps that sat in the hot Indian sun all day; by the time we reached the top our bare feet were totally singed, we were almost crying!!! but the view was pretty amazing.

The temples are so hard to describe. To see people worshipping idols is something that we will never forget. It is surreal, actually.

After two nights in Tiruchy, we thought, enough is enough, let's head to the Ghats.

We hopped on a bus that cost us $1.50 each and drove for 6 hours through the mountains of India. For the last hour, we climbed higher and higher (the bus driver put on an Indian horror movie and cranked it literally so loud that when carmen and I put in earplugs it was still too loud, mind you most of the other people on the bus were sleeping), until we reached the lovely town of Kodaikanal, where we are now. It still has the usually hustle and bustle of an Indian town, the difference is that we are literally on top of a mountain, in a cloud. This town has FRESH HANDMADE CHOCOLATE and chai tea on every corner, and the most delicious mountain coffee. Our room has a totally un-obtruded view of this massive valley, with miles and miles of forested mountains, foothills, and plains in the distance. There are huge wildflowers everywhere. It is like a paradise. We are so happy we came here because we were getting overwhelmed and shocked by the craziness of the cities and the heat. So we have a little escape and we are loving it!!!

Feel free to e-mail us, tell us how life is at home!

Love,
Marcie and Carmen