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.