This weekend we went on a trip to visit the Nilgris Mountains (about 3-4 hours away), several different towns (Ooty and Mudhumali), and two different tribal villages.
This weekend consisted of an amazing mountain climate and many adventures!
Our first stop was a tribal village!
The view was incredible, and we got to see two different places where they worship. This tribe worships nature, and especially the buffalo.
The rest of the day we went to the Mudhumali Tiger Reserve to go on a safari! Unfortunately, the reserve is inaccurately named because we didn’t see any tigers! We saw a bunch of monkeys (one even jumped on the side of the safari bus!) and baby monkeys, spotted deer, wild boar, peacocks and a few other types of birds.
After the safari we went to watch an elephant feeding!
Saturday was another day of adventure! We started the day off early, leaving our cabin at 6:30 AM to go and ride elephants! Everyone in the group had been looking forward to this for weeks! We split into groups and hopped on an elephant to go for a trek through the Indian wilderness!
This wasn’t my first time to ride an elephant. But this time was a little more exciting than the time my grandma took my brother and I to the circus in Limon, Colorado and we rode an elephants around a ring!
After the elephant rides we went to a tea estate and saw the entire process of how tea is made starting with the leaves and ending with the bags shipping out! “From pluck to cup” as said by our director Kirk. I really enjoyed seeing this process, as I like the tea here more and more!
Here is a picture of a door at the estate; once again India is not designed for tall Americans!
After the tea estate we went to another tribal village where we got to interact with the people a little bit! They taught us some words in their language and some of their dances! The monkeys wanted in on the action too ;)
After we left this village we made one last stop at Coonoor, which is well known for its chocolate! It was a great way to get a boost of energy before we started the road trip back to Coimbatore!
We took jeeps/SUVs on this trip and road trips in India are on a completely different level than road trips in the US.
At one point during the trip we were traveling on a hill that had 36 hairpin turns. And some parts of the trip we were traveling on a road where in order for two cars to pass each other, at least one car had to drop one side of the car off the paved road. This made for some interesting bumps, being whipped around corners, and of course hours of honking. Several of us were fighting against carsickness the whole way! But thankfully we all made it there and back in one piece!
Mom and Dad – I will never complain during our long car rides to Colorado ever again!
This was a great weekend of seeing the natural side of India! We all had so much fun seeing the sights and riding elephants!
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