Happy Belated Halloween! We celebrated in style by carving
watermelons and dressing up. It was a great time had by part of the group.
There was a Thai Boxer (Michelle), a peacock (Emma), a pirate (Gabby), a cat (Cornelia),
a pumpkin (Nadia) and Effie from the Hunger Games (Me). Pumpkins weren’t
available so watermelons were used instead, a flashlight on a cell phone as a
candle and you have a carved “pumpkin.” What creative backpackers can pull off
when they use their imagination and check their packs for supplies and what you
don’t have you pick up at the market or souk for less than a dollar.
I was blessed by an elephant. At one of the many temples we
have visited they had an elephant for you to be blessed by. Give your donation (20
cents) to the guy or put it in the elephants trunk and it gives it to the guy
for you and then it lifts its trunk and places it on your head giving you
blessings. It was a cool experience and a heavy trunk.
Grace we had to be sure to keep our windows closed at one
hotel to keep the monkey visitors out, I got a picture of the sign for you.
We went to a museum where they had the cloth that Gandhi was
wearing when he was shot.
We visited a spice garden and had a home cooked meal served
at their house on banana leaves. Their garden was jammed pack with spices and
plants. It was thick jungle like and we saw some cool spiders there also, how
appropriate being Halloween. We went to a tea plantation and factory. It was
very informative and the aroma great. The smell of tea was thick throughout the
air. We couldn’t take pictures inside the factory. But here goes the
description. They pick the leaves by hand or by hand using clippers. They cut
it so that there are two leaves and a bud on each piece. It gets dried,
chopped, mashed, dried and packed. It goes from being a bright green leaf to
looking like ground dirt. As we were driving there were women picking so we
were able to stop and check out their efforts in the tea fields.
We had a home stay in the Backwaters it would have been
nicer to have had more time there. The Backwaters are manmade rivers that flow
through Kerala. There was wealth there and our home stay was in a huge house
with many bedrooms and common areas. Not what I expected to see in India. The
children are picked up by boat or canoe so I got some school boat and school
canoe photos. Mable was the daughter of the people we were staying with and we
had extra watermelons so we continued Halloween for another day and carved them
with her, a first for her to celebrate Halloween.
I have left India now and am in the Maldives. I had a
stopover in Sri Lanka and with permission from the Chief Immigration officer I
was allowed to leave the airport and have an afternoon in Sri Lanka waiting for
my transfer. I just asked if I could go out of the airport and it was ask this
person at transfers, ask this person at Immigration, ask the Chief Immigration
officer who asked someone else and it was yes, yes. It sounds complicated but
only took 10 minutes. So I changed $10 for the day if you can believe it and
still had over $2 left after taking 4 bus rides, two tuk tuk rides, buying
three drinks and a key chain. A good cheap excursion and better than sitting in
the airport all day. Also because I was in transit I was given a free meal at
the airport that I ate once I returned. I wasn’t delayed this was my regular
scheduled flight but when I arrived I was told that people in transit must go
to the transit desk so I did and they gave me a meal voucher. It was unusual,
but nice.
It was a great month in India with great people and
wonderful experiences.
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