The Last Week:

Our program ended and now it was time for a week of travel! Abby’s plans changed last-minute and then Maddy, who had been having abdomen pain for a while, ended up in the hospital with such severe pain that she was diagnosed with kidney stones. Although Maddy was better by the time we were ready to travel, we all agreed last-minute it wouldn’t do her any good to go off travelling after such a hectic few days. I didn’t want to sit around in Bangalore, so I headed off to Kerala by myself. I took an overnight bus on Sunday night and arrived in Fort Cochin early Monday morning. I spent the night at this awesome homestay called Dream Catcher Homestay, and dropped my stuff off there before going exploring. I walked around, bought some souvenirs, had banana pancakes for lunch (they were weird), dipped my toes in the Arabian Sea, and got lost and walked ten times as far as I ever wanted to walk. That evening I had dinner with these three crazy Australian medical students who, go figure, were staying right next to me! They were doing rotations in Chennai but it was clear they were much more focused on travelling than actually doing medicine. It was also funny because even though we could understand each other’s English, it was apparent that there are still so many cultural differences….they asked me about wearing “thongs” in the hospital and I was really confused until I realized they were actually talking about flip-flops!

The next day, I went on a backwater tour that the man in charge of the homestay organized. Not the same as Alleppey, but nonetheless interesting. I was with this random, but nice, group of people. We started out on a houseboat-type boat and in addition to being on the water, stopped to see coconut fibers being made into rope and cement from clam shells and coal. After lunch we switched into smaller boats- basically just wooden canoes, which was really relaxing. That night I left on an overnight bus from Fort Cochin, arrived in Mangalore early morning, and immediately caught a bus to Madikeri, where I met Maddy.

Madikeri is in the Coorg region, and it was so nice to see some green for a change! I arrived around mid-morning, and almost immediately after getting there, the people at our homestay (called Alpen Glow; it was awesome. If you ever go to Coorg, stay there!) took us to an Indian wedding where we basically just showed up to take a picture with the bride and groom and eat lunch! Still, it was pretty awesome! The people who own the homestay also own the local newspaper, so they seemed to know just about every person in attendance.

That afternoon, Maddy and I headed a couple km out of town to see Abbi Falls, a pretty magnificent waterfall only made better by the mist and rain. We also walked around town, bought a couple souvenirs, and had a light dinner. Madiker, by the way, is this cute little town and it was really neat to see something smaller after living in such a big city for so long.

The next day (Thursday) there was a strike. Apparently it’s because the government wants to protect the wilderness around Madikeri but the people want more factories for work. They were protesting by not running any local transportation, which we thought was almost supporting the people they were striking against. But anyways, because of this we were basically stuck in town the entire day, which was unfortunate. We managed to get out, though, by going with the owners to their brother’s coffee estate in the morning and then walking to see these old castle-type ruins afterwards.

Friday, our last day in Madikeri, was most definitely the highlight of the week. We left early morning and started by going to the Dubare elephant camp, where we were able to see the elephants bathe, eat, and most exciting of all, we got to ride an elephant!! One goal of coming to India: accomplished! Next, we headed to this deer park where there were unfortunately not any deer, but we did have a nice walk through some woods. After that we headed to the Namdroling Monastery, which was incredible. Not only was it so ornate, but much bigger than I had anticipated. Unfortunately we were unable to actually sit/meditate because the monks were in prayer, but did get to walk around and observe their various activities. Apparently all these Tibetans are refugees from China, and they have formed nine different camps in this area. We had this awesome auto driver who showed us some different sights around the Monastery and finally dropped us off at the first camp for lunch and shopping. After we had had our fill of walking around the cute little village, we headed back to Madikeri (and actually much earlier than we had anticipated).

That evening (last night), we took an overnight bus to Bangalore. It was actually sad to leave because the owners were so nice. They were so accommodating and actually gave Maddy and I gifts as we were leaving…. We had been commenting (to ourselves) on how much we liked the stainless steel plates/silverware sets they use, and the lady gave us each a small plate with some snacks for the bus ride…so incredibly thoughtful and something I can’t imagine happening in the states! How often do people you’re paying to stay with give you gifts when you leave? Probably not often.

We arrived this morning in Bangalore by bus at the ungodly hour of 5am. It was still dark, we knew nothing would be open, and there was no way we wanted to be on the streets, so we crashed at the train station where we had been dropped off. Because all the seats were taken, we spent several very uncomfortable hours on the floor attempting to sleep, people watching, getting weird looks, and glaring at the creepers giving us weird looks. Finally we wandered into a small restaurant to find something to eat and get coffee. We ended up talking to this guy from Holland who’s traveling alone for 6 months, which luckily killed some more time. He asked advice for what to do in Bangalore and surprisingly we didn’t have that much, but I guess that’s good because it means we’ve actually lived here and not just been tourists. We finally left at the more respectable hour 9am and arrived at Mathyoo just in time for breakfast!

Maddy is here for a couple more days and I just finished packing up all my stuff for my flight home tonight…

Kerala backwaters

Our boat

Backwaters

Fort Cochin

Coast of India!

Abbi Falls

Chinese Fishing Nets

Monastery

Monks during prayer time