The last 5 days

Managed to get online again, so here's what we've been up to for the last five days:

Tues 29 July: Arrived in Kumarakom at a hotel called Backwater Ripples. Another slick hotel! This one had table tennis and a chess set (I was swiftly beaten by Nikhil in both lol. Neil beat me in table tennis too. I suck!). We watched 'The Departed' in our room but had to go for dinner just before it finished. Very cool movie, will definitely watch it again. We met a really nice family from Manchester with 3 kids aged 16, 11 and 9.

Weds 30 July: We went to a bird sanctuary at stupid o'clock, only to find out that it was a 2km walk, and due to the constant rain, was a trek thru wet mud. We were told we had to leave at 6.30 otherwise the birds fly away. After all that walking, we barely saw any anyway! lol admittedly it was an experience, and neil's took a sneaky video of me trying to make the walk back more interesting. Here's me praying he doesn't facebook it. In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise. We went passed a school and it was sooo cool seeing all the kids getting excited because we were holding cameras and waving at them lol. Hopefully we brightened up their day (it was, of course, raining!).

Thur 31 July: We stopped by a tea factory on our way to the next place. Unfortunately the processing was shut off for the day because it was the anniversary of someone's death. Still, it was pretty cool seeing all the machines and tea leaves. We also went to a spice plantation. My mum recognised almost all of the spices/plants lol. It poured down with rain again so it was a little frustrating, but the guide was well-equipped with umbrellas for all of us. Neil, mum and myself went up to a tree house. Nikhil and dad didn't, with dad suggesting it wasn't strong enough for the 5 of us. Er, yes. We got to Cardamom County hotel, in Thekkedy where we met up with the Manchester family again! The hotel food wasn't great (for us veges at least).

Fri 1 Aug: Mum bought a huge frame made of different coloured woods to decorate our living room back home. We had to have it shipped to the UK (weight was 10KG!), so fingers crossed it'll get there. Neil, Nikhil and myself went on a 30min elephant ride! We missed out on the elephant with tusks, but still it was awesome. The elephant didn't waste much time going for a number 1, which sounded more like a waterfall underneath us lol. Not long after, it went for a number 2, but the surprising part was our elephant guide moving the 'fresh product' to the side of the track with his feet. He was only wearing sandles :| The road to Hotel Tea Valley here in Munnar was extremely windy, but the view was strangely like some of New Zealand. Dinner was pretty good, but it was challenging to ignore the billions of flies, mosquitos, ants and other insects around our food, on the table and on the ceiling. Yep.

Sat 2 Aug: Had an extremely bad night's sleep. The bed I was given was basically made of wooden planks with a very thin 'matress' on top. It was SO uncomfortable! I complained this morning and got it sorted :D Breakfast was crap. It was basically warm bread. Anyway, we went to Madupetty Dam, followed by speed boating along the lake created by the dam. It wasn't very speedy unfortunately, but we did see a wild elephant. After that, we went to Echo view point, which was nothing special. We went to another dam, and then a tea factory/museum. This was very cool. We tasted some AMAZING tea (some of you, including my gf, will know how much I like my chai lol). We were shown a demonstration of the tea making from the tea leaves to the final product. Then we watched a documentary on the history of the plantation. Really interesting. Afterwards we bought some much needed fruit. Passion fruit is delicious! Can't remember the last time I had it, but wow :D