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Coorg

Tim and I spent this past weekend in Coorg, an absolutely gorgeous region of hills and coffee plantations in the Western Ghats. We stayed at Mojo Plantation Rainforest Retreat, a non-profit that promotes sustainable agriculture and teaches local farmers how to grow organically. Despite our reservation of a "Deluxe Cottage," the accommodations were REALLY basic, and featured only solar-powered lights, a perpetually damp mattress, and tons of cool bugs. It was more like a cabin that you would rent in a public park than the "eco-chic" bungalow Lonely Planet touted. Admittedly, being without a hairdryer for more than 24 hours puts me in an extremely foul mood, but I managed to have a fantastic stay.

When we first arrived, we were greeted by Matt, one of the Retreat's interns and hiking guides, who happened to be wearing a Phillies cap! Turns out, he moved to India three weeks ago from West Philly with his girlfriend, Erin, who is also doing an internship there. We were super excited to have someone from Philly as our guide, but I totally freaked out when Erin actually showed up at the dining hall (yes, we had group meals), and I realized that I knew her! I met her three years ago when I did some Hurricane Katrina relief in Biloxi. It's weird to be so far from home, in a really remote location - six hours from Bangalore, down a shitty dirt road that our driver refused to drive on after dark - and to run into someone that I had met before!

We did some hiking (and I got bitten by a leech!), took a tour of the plantation, where they grow organic coffee, cardamom, and vanilla, and did a lot of reading on our little porch. We also spent some time getting to know the other travelers there, including an adorable French family with three little kids who were in the room next to ours.

On Sunday, we went into the capital of Coorg, a town called Madikeri, which was preparing for Monday's Vijayadashmi festivities. There is not too much to see in Madikeri - the main tourist "attraction" is the Raja's Seat, a small open structure in a park, where the most interesting feature was the animal-shaped garbage cans. Well, most interesting feature next to the AMAZING view of green sprawling hills and valleys. We took a ton of pictures, but my digital camera crapped out, and so we have to wait to get Tim's film developed. The pics I took on my Blackberry's camera just do not do it justice.

As we were leaving Madikeri, we passed by the police station, and the cops ordered Tim to come inside. My immediate reaction was to think "What the fuck did you DO?" Luckily, the cops were just really nice, and wanted us to come into the station to see the alters they had set up for the Goddess Durga. They also gave us Prasad , sweets given at Temples as offerings. One was a sweet, milky liquid that they ladled into our hands and watched us sloppily lap up. The other was a huge bag full of shredded coconut, sugar cane chunks (you have to spit out the cane itself after you have chewed all the goodness out of it), yellow raisins, and dry lentils. Tim was a bigger fan than I was. He ate most of his bag on the ride back to the Rainforest, while I still have my entire bag two days later. I would have preferred a bag of that milk slop or some ladoos.

On our last day, we got up at the crack of dawn so that we could drive 30 kms to Dubare Elephant Camp . You take a rickety little motor boat across the Cauvery River to reach the camp, which is full of elephants just roaming around, encumbered only by heavy chains wrapped around their front feet. We met some very nice elephant friends, including a baby elephant that put it's trunk all up in my face, in an awkward attempt to make out. I was especially fond of the elephant pictured above, and was having a great time hanging out with him, until I was informed that the employees who had been yelling unintelligibly for several minutes were actually trying to tell me that my elephant friend had just been rescued from the wild and was not yet trained. I decided to heed their warnings and backed it up, but I really don't think he had any intention of stampeding or crushing me. We were buddies.

After Dubare, we made one more stop in Bylakuppe, a Tibetan monastery town that boasts the impressive if not ridiculously gaudy Golden Temple. At the Temple, I was stopped by a Muslim family who wanted to know which country I was from (I get that a lot), and asked me to pose for a picture. I don't know if they wanted to pose with me because my whiteness was novel, or because they thought I looked ridiculous in my Kurta(tunic),Churidars(scrunch leggings), and do-rag (no hair dryer!). After being a live tourist attraction, we had some authentic Tibetan food for lunch - Momos, which are steamed dumplings, and Thukpa, a spicy noodle soup, which has a hint of golden curry flavor.

All in all, it was a really good weekend. I was NOT pleased to have to go back to office this morning! Lucky for me, this is an extremely short week, because we have off on Friday for Gandhi-ji's birthday! I'll get the pictures back tomorrow and put an album up ASAP.

Happy Ending?

I <3 Romeo

Hands down, Aditya "Romeo" Dev is my favorite Indian celebrity. I had learned of him from one of my friends at the last job I worked at in the States, but had somehow managed to forget all about him until the other night, when his hotness graced my TV screen. Sadly, he lives far from Bangalore, but the TV show he was on said that you can hire him to perform at your wedding or corporate event. I don't think my work will spring for him at our next annual outing, so someone is going to have to get married soon......





P.S. - Thanks to Derek for reminding me to post this.

Happy Dasara!

This weekend was the start of a ten-day festival celebrating the triumph of my favorite Goddess, Durga, over the Demon Mahishasura - that dude with the awesome hair and the big sword that Tim and I posed with in Mysore.

According to the story, Mahishasura was the love child of the king of the demons and a water buffalo. He could change into a water buffalo whenever he wanted to, although no one has provided me with an adequate explanation of what the benefit of doing this would be. He was really into Lord Brahma, who in a major lapse of judgment gave Mahishasura the power to be undefeated by man or god. Mahishasura then went on a terrible rampage, causing all kinds of trouble and being a huge a-hole both on earth and in heaven. The gods got together and created the Goddess Durga to defeat him (being a lady, that whole "man or god" thing did not apply). Durga was given weapons from all of the Gods, and got to ride on a badass Tiger. The fight went on for ten days, but at the end, Durga was the winner (she also called him illiterate during the fight, which is one of my favorite details. BURN!!!!) Next weekend will be the end of the celebration, which is called Vijayadashmi. We had a three-day weekend this week, and we get one next week, too! Yay, Durga! Tim and I are going to go here next weekend to celebrate with a little bit of hiking and hopefully an elephant encounter!

Not Quite Miraculous

My co-worker, friend, and upstairs neighbor Ben bought some Miracle Berries recently, and decided to throw a "tasting party." Since the "miracle" part of the berries is their ability to make sour foods taste really sweet, we bought an array of different foods to test out while "under the influence." The miracle berries came in powder form, and we basically had to put a clump of powder in our mouths and then swish around the juice it made with our spit. It definitely worked - beer and hot sauce were the most dramatically changed flavors, both being extremely sweet and extra yum. Already sweet foods, like candy and fruit tasted really bland. I drank too much hot sauce and had to go home early.



Ben shopping for potential miracle-berry-induced taste sensations


Our miracle berry "doses" - tasted like sour fruit roll-up


An array of foodstuffs we wanted to try in a taste-altered state



Don't worry, it's just lime pickle....



A really handsome radish



It was the star of the party



Right before I started drinking it by the glass


I'm not sure what was happening here...I thought Ben and Tim were about to makeout.



Apparently not?


Tender coconut, green pepper, and beer were extra sweet and delicious


Tim trying to prove his manhood after the Ben incident



Another look at my new accidentally black hair - I really miss my hairdresser.

Tim wants to taste the radish

Tit Bits

Supposedly a "mouth freshner," Tit Bits look like Tic Tacs but taste like that time that Grandma washed your mouth out with soap and made you use the toilet brush to scrub your potty tongue. I like 'em!

Mind It.

This is the trailer for the biggest, most long-anticipated movie opening of the summer here in India: Quick Gun Murugun! We think this looks REALLY good....