you guys wanna try some of my 'wow magic'?

hello again from the land of heat and humidity... we've left ooty and endured the worst bus ride to date: 15.5 hours on a video coach which means blaring hindi/tamil/kannada movies as well as exploding tires and smoking brakes. fantastic!

we're missing ooty already (i've noticed this has become a theme whenver we leave a place) but i think this time there is a legit reason: the lovely cool climes of the nilgiri hills is veeeerrrry similar to a cool day back home compared the temp of 36 degrees here in mamallapuram. also, we had a sweet sweet satelite tv for the past week with english tv shows, educational nat geo/discovery channel programs, and brad pitt movies that we watched to our hearts' content... oh and while watching copious amounts of tv we were inundated with the same ten random indian commercials repeated over and over again. my post title refers to a potato chip commercial which promises magical results when you use them to scoop up your curry or masala... needless to say, very little of what we did consisted of 'roughing it' or 'backpacking' so now that we're back to real world, it's all a bit foreign. hahaha.... however, we do have the ocean and beaches nearby so that should hopefully even it all out. we're here for a couple days, then down to pondicherry

oh and i figure since i haven't put up picture's since hampi y'all are due for some visuals... soo here's my one picture from Mysore:

the purdy palace... it housed some of the saddest lookin' elephants and emaciated camels i've ever seen (needless to say we didn't go for the rides they were offering) but we did get ourselves a guide who was very knowledgeable about the castle's history, and a little bit senile. i think he told us the same rehearsed line about the castle's cannons not being for war, but only for celebrations about 3 or 4 times? hahaha, he was super cute though and showed us all the gold and ivory inlay around the place and little details like hanging elephants that we probably would have never noticed ourselves....

the view from the top: 4 hours of windy roads, 36 hairbend turns and not enough leg room = 2500 metres above sea level at kalhatty falls ( a few km outside of ooty) and a temperate rainforest climate... note the random mixture of scraggly pine, eucalyptus and laurel... with the odd palm tree to remind you you're in a tropical country.

this would be our autorickshaw ride into town, with the flowing brown river that nearly swept us off the road. only the combined weight of the three of us, plus massive backpacks prevented such from happening.

this is ms. krista in our hotel room enjoying my knee high socks that kept her legs all nice n' warm.

and here is the surrounding countryside, political slogans being written on roadside barriers,tea estates and rolling hills... everything's gone green.

ooh and then we went on a lovely chauffered ride from ooty to conoor to see the sites, like sims park (wherein we ran around like a buncha idiots and acted like children. as can be seen in the following pictures)

this would be the day we went horseback riding at fernhills palace, diana's first time on a horse, and eugene's second. krista and meghan being the seasoned professionals, go t the stubborn, willfull horses... and diana's well.... he was obedient... and just plain vicious. he liked eugene's horse but had a tendency to try to maul mine whenever they came withing 10 feet of each other...

this would be the tractor roadblock that bottomed out in the 4 feet of mud that was our trail.

and this is what happened that evening as everyone was verrrrry stiff from the 3 hour ride, our saddles were pretty hard and provided very little padding for our poor spines, and the trotting didn't go over so well with those who didn't know how to post... to quote the first timer "my inner thighs are actually bruised and swollen." so captain cracker (aka. eugene w. his towel as a cape) came to the rescue by walking on peoples backs...

ooh, we found henna tubes in the local grocery stores and kindof went overboard henna-ing every surface possible. here krista demonstrates the best method for designing on your own foot.

the day after we had our lovely pony ride, everyone was feeling a wee bit stiff so i wandered off to explore, and ended up hiking up to the highest point in the nilgiri's, dodabetta peak. after getting off the local bus, i walked up the 3 km road to the top, much to the amusement and concern of the locals who kept stopping and trying to reason with the crazy white girl that the uphill walk was too much for me (which was true, but i stubbornly refused any rides on their comfy looking scooters or roomy jeeps, dangit) as such my sense of accomplishment, or lack of oxygen (it was about 3100 metres) made the views that much purdier...

oh and just in case you were thinking of using your love to burn down a forest, don't.

in ooty, and the rest of the country most animals are left to fend for themselves when it comes to food. most animals go the easy route and scavenge for garbage on the ground, but not goats. oh no, they're quite creative and will eat just about anything they can reach: some of my personal faves include dashboard shrines in autorickshaws, and movie posters on walls...

cows, however, are a different story, and if someone doesn't feed them, they'll just wander on into your house and steal whatever's lyin' around.

speaking of cows: sheer bliss exhibited upon the discovery of faux-laughing cow cheese (no refrigeration necessary) Happy Cow. yummy and functional on long journey bus rides when the rest stop canteens scare even the locals...

and this is our joy and delight in stopping 1.5 hours into our marathon bus ride when our tire blew up and brakes caught on fire. the upside: no music for 45 mins.

this is diana's quick pic of our least favourite bathroom to date: an indian squat urinal for ladies. at the rest stop where our bus broke down. needless to say we went the prissy white girl route and waited for the one stall to free up.