June 20th: Mehendi Time

Gauri working on our mehendi

Our last few days have been very laid back. I think we are both afraid of getting sick before having to get on a plane. However since we were sick, my grandfather, aunt and cousin all came for a visit early in the morning. It was nice to see them one last time before we left and this time they brought me Indian peanut candy. I was a little bummed because usually my grandfather always has peanut candy for me to take back but he didn't have any when we went to visit this time. Instead there was a big bag of peanuts that they had grown on the farm for my dad. I told my dad that my grandfather was so occupied making sure that his son got his peanuts that he forgot about getting his granddaughter her peanut candy and my dad told my grandfather so they made sure that they brought some with them. Little kiddish I know but I love peanut candy or kaadalai mittai as we call it. They stayed for breakfast and left a little before noon.
After they left we spent some time packing our suitcases to see if we had any room left to get some grocery items for my mother. Packing is one thing that I do not enjoy. Especially because we each only had one suitcase that we could take back with us. Normally we have two huge suitcases apiece but United Airlines only allows for one :(. Either way we were fine weight-wise. Didn't buy too many clothes this time around so we aren't scrambling in the end trying to fit everything in.

My sister and I really wanted to have mehendi done while we were in India so my aunt had asked someone that she knew to stop by our house. The girl was probably 20 years old but she spent around 2.5 hours at our house on our designs and they turned out pretty well.

One hand is finished

The back of my hands

The front of my hands

June 19th: Brookfield Mall: Movies, Pizza, & Baskin Robbins

Both my sister and I woke up feeling infinitely better today. It may have helped that I didn't do anything yesterday except sleep but thank goodness because if we had to sit in a plane for 15 hours feeling like crap I would cry. Since we had to cancel our trip to Madras we decided that we'd try to go see a movie at the new theater in town at night. We had a photographer come in the morning and take sibling photos which are on a CD so we can't look at them until we get home since both of us only brought our netbooks. We took a few pictures ourselves but hopefully the pics on the cd are better than the ones we took since we did pay for the photo session. After lunch we headed to a nearby clothing store to see if there were any salwars that my sister liked because she didn't come into town shopping on Saturday. Unfortunately there isn't a large enough selection like in Coimbatore but she did manage to find two salwar sets that she really liked. We also stopped at a nearby grocery store to pick up a few things for my grandma and mom to bring back to the States.

Dragon Chicken

 In the evening Selvi Athai and Sekar Mama took us to Brookfield Mall. The last time that we were at the mall was in 2010 when there was only one large department store because it was still under construction but now it's this massive building that is gorgeous and CLEAN inside. The movie theater is amazing. It's a lot nicer than pretty much every theater that we have in the States. We saw a Tamil movie called Thadaiyara Thaakka which surprisingly enough was a decent movie with a pretty cool twist. We had dinner at the food court that had a Subway, KFC, Pizza Corner a chinese restaurant and the best of all Baskin Robbins. We decided to have some Chinese food and Pizza for dinner before the movie and have Baskin Robbins afterwards. 

My sister's pizza and my conizza

The movie theater

yummy in tummy

June 18th: Best Day Ever

.....NOT

Spent the entire day in bed with a horrible stomach ache and headache. Hip hip hooray

June 17th: Family Visits and Being Sick Continued

So we both started the day on Sunday feeling pretty good and we were excited because we were having family come visit. Our cousin and his wife from Bangalore were visiting us and my aunt was bringing her two kids and it's always a blast with the two little ones. However I think both my sister and I started to feel sick around lunch time. Our diet pretty much has been bread and plain rice for the past three days. It hasn't really been helping much for me at least. Anyway, we spent a good 3-4 hours playing this game called International Business that Dhyanesh had brought with him. It's basically the Indian version of monopoly. It was actually a ton of fun because Dhyanesh's mom (Baby Athai) was super into it and our minds were distracted for a little while. We stuck the little one with my laptop in another room to watch a movie because she wanted one of us to come outside an play in the park with her but no one wanted to go out in the hot weather. In the middle of our game, Suresh anna and Nirmala stopped by for a bit to see us. This was the first time that my grandmother was seeing them as well since she was unable to make it to their wedding in April. They could only stay for a little bit because Anna had to head back to Bangalore in the evening but it was still nice to see them. Jarshini, Dhyanesh and my aunt stayed for dinner and didn't leave till later in the evening. We spent some time Skyping with my parents until the car arrived to take them home. Neither of them wanted to leave but they had school the next day so they didn't have a choice. Once they left both my sister and I just crashed. We had been distracted by visitors but once no one was in the house we had nothing to think about except how crappy and sick we both were feeling. I think this was the third straight night that we had skipped dinner because we weren't feeling well and my grandma couldn't figure out what to do because she kept having so much food going to waste. 

With Jarshini (she's got a hole in her mouth :-P)

With Dhyanesh

Nirmala and Anna with my grandmother

June 16: Shopping in Coimbatore

Getting her ears marked

I woke up feeling a lot better but unfortunately my sister started getting sick at 3 in the morning and woke up pretty much every hour to throw up. No one really go much sleep after 3am but apparently the food and weather was not agreeing with us this time around. Thankfully I was feeling a little bit better but still was not a 100%. We were supposed to spend the day shopping in Coimbatore with my aunt and her son but my sister couldn't come so we had to leave her at home while the rest of us went. One of the gold bangle sets that my mom had gotten last year ended up breaking the night before we left so we were going to return it and pick out a new set at Selvi Athai's favorite gold jewelers. Apparently she is a frequent visitor because she knew everyone at the store and they all knew her and what she liked. I was pretty quick at picking out what I wanted but when it comes to gold I don't really like anything fancy. Plain and simple is the way to go for me but apparently plain and simple does not work for Selvi Athai because she got me to pick a different set that had more engravings. I won't have pictures till Thursday because they didn't have my size at the store and had to order a pair for me. It's crazy how much money people spend on gold here in India. I am quite happy with my costume jewelry but here buying gold is an investment, similar to buying stocks. I don't know what possessed her to get her ears pierced but Selvi Athai really wanted to get a second ear piercing so she decided to go for it. The store had to call someone to come pierce her ears and she spent the entire time fretting over whether or not she should go through with it. Her son, Raja Barathi and I decided that instead of holding her hand we were going to video tape the piercing because we knew it was going to be entertaining and boy were we right. By the time she was ready to get her ears pierced the entire store was gathered around to watch.

She basically cried for her mom and dad throughout the piercing. It was highly entertaining :-P

After this store we headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch and then I went to my favorite little hole in the wall jewelry store to pick up a "few" things. Just to raise my mom's blood pressure a little bit I took a picture of all the jewelry that I have bought so far on this trip.

Pretty pretty pretty!!!!!

It's upside down but I found a pretty watch bracelet

A random find but I loved it

 We stopped at Spencers to see if there were any good baked goods but ended up getting cookies and cream ice cream before heading to our next stop. Raja Barathi wanted to pick up some more clothes before he leaves for Delhi for school next week so we went to this new store called Grasp. It was really interesting because pretty much all the clothes in the store are American Eagle, A&F, Aeropostale, Levi......and they all have the same pattern. I don't know the name of the pattern except they're flannel meets checkerboard on cotton fabric. There is a separate store for guys and a separate one for girls but when you step into the guys store they are all pretty much dressed similarly which was entertaining. Everything was loud and bright and completely not what I think would look good on people but apparently that is the trend here. I ended up buying a chudidar set at the end of the night before we all headed back home.  

June 15th: Visiting my dad's family and the first bout of sickness

The newborn calf at my aunt's farm

The plan was to wake up on Friday and go to my aunt and uncle's house (Kumar Anna's parents) in Vedasandur for breakfast and then to my other aunt and uncle's house (Dad's sister and her husband) for lunch and to visit my grandfather who lives with them. However, I woke up feeling like crap which meant that today was not going to be a fun day for me. I pretty much spent the entire morning laying down and attempting to get ready so that we could actually see everyone before we headed home to Sulur. Kavin and Rithani were headed off to school so we said bye to them before Rangaraj Mama took my grandmother, sister and I to our aunt and uncle's for breakfast. I sat down to eat breakfast and throughout breakfast realized that I was feeling nauseous so I ended up going and laying down for the rest of our visit. I felt really bad because I hadn't seen my aunt and uncle in a year but there was no way that I could remain vertical for a long period time. Eventually my sister woke me up because it was time for our next stop. Along the way we stopped to get me some club soda (in hopes of settling my stomach) but club soda is disgusting. First time that I have had it and hopefully the last. I know my grandfather was looking forward to seeing us so I was hoping that I would feel better throughout the visit but I just ended up feeling worse and worse. My aunt and uncle have a pretty big farm and had some coconut trees so my uncle cut down some coconuts for us to drink. Usually I love coconut water but today I couldn't fathom drinking of eating anything. 

My uncle opening the coconuts for us

 I just wanted to lay down in my bed and sleep forever. Unfortunately, neither of those wishes were possible. Rangaraj Mama had to leave halfway through our visit so we said bye to him because we wouldn't be seeing him for the rest of our visit. I pretty much spent the entire visit at my aunt's laying down on a cot outside under the tree which felt super nice while everyone talked around me. I felt bad because this was the only time that we would be seeing our grandfather during the trip but I could barely keep my eyes open and my entire body just felt drained. 

 

With our grandfather

My sis with our aunt (dad's 2nd sis) and uncle

With Sekar mama's parents

We had a car come pick us up around 2:30pm so that we could get back to Sulur at a reasonable time. I spent the entire ride back laying down on my sister's lap trying not to get sick every time we went over a speed bump. They sure do love to put speed bumps on the roads here. You can't go 100 feet without having another speed bump appear. Along the way was the farm or as we call it, thottam, of another set of grandparents (Sekar mama's parents, the uncle that picked us up from Gudalur). We couldn't go without stopping in since we were driving right past the farm so we had a 30 minute detour to see them and get more coconuts. The coconut water is supposed to be really refreshing and is good for hydration in the hot weather but again could not think about drinking or eating anything. I probably would have enjoyed our side visit a lot more if I was feeling better because the thottam is gorgeous and there was a great breeze but all I wanted to do was get home and go to sleep. After spending a reasonable amount of time we got back in the car and headed home which was perfect because as soon as we pulled up and got the door open I ended up rushing to the bathroom to throw up. Fun times right? Thankfully that seemed to be the only time that I needed to throw up so I just ended up getting into pjs and going to sleep at 5pm. My grandmother and sister went over to Selvi Athai and Sekar mama's house for dinner but I'm glad I didn't because eating dinner probably would have made me sicker especially since my sister ended up getting sick starting at 3am continuing threw to the next morning.

This is really turning out to be a great end to our trip right? 

June 14th: Family Ceremonies and Dindigal

With Ashvatha, Rithani and Kavin

Blurry pic of the house all lit up

Somehow we forced ourselves to get up at 4am (more like 4:30am in my case) and get ready to go to the puja. I decided to wear my new white sari since everyone else was going to be dressed up anyway and I didn't really bring more than one fancy salwar kameez/chudidar set. We went into the room where the puja was set up but couldn't stand there for too long because the smoke was burning our eyes. Pretty much everyone except the priests and my aunt and uncle that were performing the puja for Bala Anna and his wife left the room with tears running down their eyes. It was still dark when we got to the puja but the sun slowly started coming up around 5:30-6am. There were a lot more people that were here for the puja compared to the dinner the night before so we spent some time again with different people coming up to us with their barrage of questions about our life and how our parents were and how they hadn't seen us in such a long time........ It was actually a rather boring morning. We spent most of the time just sitting and watching what was going on around us and listening to people talk about us around us. That is always the fun part. People trickled in and out and there was another new house ceremony that was happening across the street so people were shuffling between the two ceremonies. Breakfast was an ongoing affair and people just kept trickling in whenever they felt hungry. It was definitely a heavy meal and I don't think I had fully recovered from the dinner the previous night because

The cow and the calf that is hiding

I couldn't eat much of the food. I tried to eat a little bit of everything but I really didn't want to get sick (that kind of failed) for the one week that we were here. After breakfast, my sister and I wandered over the park with the kids to see what they were up to since they seemed to be having a lot more fun than the two of us and we ended up playing on the swings and the small merry go round esque contraption. Eventually we did go back to the puja because it was time for the two cows to be led into the house and apparently having the cow urinate and poop in the house is a good thing. Who knew? At least it wasn't directly on the floor and on the carpet but still it is an interesting concept. There was a cow and a cute little calf that were led into the house.

Visitors that I don't know

Eventually we got tired and left around 8:30am to go home and take a nap. It felt like it should be 4-5pm in the afternoon and not 9am but all the little ones decided that they wanted to come back with us and nap because they were tired of hanging around the puja. We all trudged back home only to figure out that none of us could really fall asleep no matter how hard we tried. Ashvatha was the only one that passed out but being 3 years old and having been up since 2am she had good reason to crash. My sister, Rithani and Kavin all watched Vaarnam Aayirum (which is a great movie) while I hung out with my grandma and uncle. Slowly people from the puja started trickling over to our house to talk and more importantly take a nap. It was actually entertaining when more and more people started coming over and realized that people they had been looking for over at the puja were actually over at our house sleeping. We were planning on heading to Dindigal with Rangaraj Mama and Bavani akka this afternoon so my sister and I could visit our grandfather who lives about twenty minutes away. We were going to leaving around 2-2:30pm so we went back over to the puja to eat some lunch before coming back to get our things together. We finally after eating and answering more questions were able to pull ourselves away around 1:30 to come back home and pack. At 2:30, my uncle came with his family and the seven of us piled into his 5-seater with the kids on our laps in the back for the 3 hour trip back to their house. We all fell asleep at various points throughout the trip but thankfully it wasn't a horribly cramped trip back. I don't know how Kavin and Rithani managed but they curled themselves up in two balls and went to sleep right away and didn't wake up until we got to their house. I ended up falling asleep once we got to their house but had to get back up when our other cousin Kumar Anna came to visit with his wife (Gomathi Ani) and their 7 year old son Siddharth. The two of them live in Dindigal as well so they came over to visit with us because all the kids are in school now so this was the only time that we would have gotten to see Siddharth. I think I was half awake during their entire visit but it was definitely nice to see them. I don't think I saw them during my last visit and Siddharth has definitely gotten bigger in the meantime. 

Gomathi Ani, Kumar Anna, Rangaraj Mama, & Rithani

Siddharth was pretty engrossed with angry birds 

My uncle was really proud of his mosquito tent. 

We were all pretty exhausted from the long day so once Kumar Anna and his family left, we ate dinner and went to bed around 8pm. Kavin and Rithani had school the next morning and needed to get up somewhat early to get ready for school. While the rest of us slept on mattresses my uncle decided he was going to test out this new mosquito tent that he had bought and set it up outside on the patio and slept there. He was quite proud of his purchase and really excited to use it. He wanted me to take a picture of him inside to show my mom, so here you go Amma. 

June 13th: First day in Sulur & It's already time for family events

My sister and I slept in quite a bit on Wednesday but we did have to get up eventually and get ready for the day. There is a daily power cut here in Sulur from 9am-12pm and then again at some point in the afternoon/evening. It's really quite annoying but there is nothing that can be done especially since this time around we have a generator that lets us use the lights and fans during the power cuts. I made a round of calls to various family members to let them know that we had arrived. Since we are only here for a week we weren't really planning on going anywhere but to see my grandfather (dad's dad) who lives about 3 hours away.

With Rithika (neighbor) and Ashvatha

First up visitors-wise: My cousin Bhavani, her husband (my uncle) Rangaraj Mama, their kids Rithani and Kavin, Bhavani akka's older brother Bala Anna, his wife Selvi, their daughter Asvatha and Bhavani Akka and Bala Anna's mother, my aunt. Bala Anna and his wife are building a new house/apartment building and were having the puja (blessing) for the new house the next morning and had come to invite us to the ceremony. Their new house was literally about 50 yards diagonally across from our house so we all we had to do was walk across the grass. There was a dinner tonight, the puja was supposed to start at 3:30am (we are all about auspicious times here in India) and there would be breakfast around 7-8am and then lunch at 12am.
The kids stayed back at our house while everyone else left to go prepare everything for the ceremony and the onslaught of guests. There were probably going to be around 300 people that were coming and going throughout the night and the next day. We headed out to the new house around 7pm which started the barrage of relatives coming up to us to ask us when we had arrived, how we were doing, how our parents were doing, if we remembered them, how old we were, what we were doing, how long we were in India for, what we were doing in India and on and on and on..... We have a huge family and here in India you keep in touch with pretty much everyone even if they are your fifth, sixth or even tenth cousins. So basically about 50-60% of the people at the puja were related to us and another 20% knew my grandparents and mother and therefore "knew us."

Ashvatha and Rithani

My sister and I? We knew about 0.1% of the people there. We spent a lot of time playing the do you remember me? Well take a guess game with everyone there. And let me tell you this was a lose-lose situation. I literally knew 10 people that were at the ceremony however pretty much everyone else knew us, knew of us, or hadn't seen us since my first visit when I was 4 but still expected me to remember who they were. Regardless we had a fun time, the house was all decked out in lights and there were a ton of people milling around everywhere. A tent was set up as a place for people to eat and there was a smaller canopy set up for people to sit under. People were arriving left and right and pretty much everyone that had come from out of town was going to be spending the night in the new building. There are three floors and six apartment units in the building and everything is empty so everyone was just claiming their spots and sleeping for a few hours before they needed to get ready for the puja at 3:30am. Thank goodness that we lived close enough to go home and sleep in our own beds (which aren't really that comfortable) but at least we were sleeping on beds and not on the floor. Rangaraj Mama came back with us because he didn't want to sleep on the floor either and none of us were planning on being at the puja at 3:30am. My grandmother decided she was only going to come to the puja in the morning because she didn't want to tire herself out being at the house the entire time. We decided that we would get up around 4am (yipee, such a better time) and then wander over once we got ready to see everyone and the puja.

My grandma with Rangaraj Mama (Uncle)

June 12: Last Day at the Hospital

Ammini sitting at her desk

For my last day at the hospital I followed Ammini to observe more of her counseling methods and to speak with some of the families that she interacted with. During our breaks we discussed how things needed to be broken down so that members of the community could understand the information. Ammini asked if there was anyway that I could just stay in Gudalur with her and help her talk with families and explain the material to them. We went over more of the pamphlet material and I got all the different topics that I will eventually need to work on and cover. We also spent some time meeting with Dr. Nandakumar to make sure that all the material is on track and that I had all the information that I needed to continue working when I got back to Pittsburgh.
After lunch I spent some time with Mahesh who is the Ayurvedic doctor at the hospital to tape some yoga exercises that we can play for the patients so that they can perform the exercises correctly. It's going to be really cool when the videos all come together. My uncle was coming to pick us up at 4pm so I had to make sure I had everything that I needed and needed Dr. Nandakumar to fill out my evaluation form for my rotation. I really hope that I can manage to make it back here at least once a year because it definitely is a peaceful atmosphere and the people here are amazing to work with.
My uncle was on time to pick us up so we said bye to everyone at the hospital and packed up his car for the 4.5 hour drive home to Sulur. He had brought his niece, Saranya, with him to keep him company on the drive up to Gudalur so we had a full car on our way back. We had to drive through Ooty to get to Sulur so we stopped in Ooty to grab some food and take a small break. I have a strong feeling that he likes to see how fast he can drive because we were definitely zooming down the mountain holding on for our dear lives. I tried to take a video clip of his driving but we kept getting caught behind buses and he felt the need to go around the buses and other cars which scared us because it was dark and they were all hair-pin turns.

We dropped Saranya off at her house and stopped in to say to her family before heading home. We got home around 10:30 where we tried to eat the dinner that our grandmother had made for us but we just ended up getting into our PJs and passing out.

               

June 11: Ellumaram Village Visit

The local area center

We spent the day at a nearby village updating medical histories, passing out medication and screening individuals for sickle cell. The environment here is very different from other hospitals in the country. There are around 28 villages that the hospital caters to comprising around 20,000 individuals. There are 8 area centers that each have 2 nurses/health animators that are there every day and are responsible for seeing the patients that the area center is responsible for. The Gudalur Adivasi Hospital can be very far from some villages so patients cannot necessarily make it to the hospital every time they need medical attention. It is during these times that they go to the area center to receive care and medicine. All of the employees in the hospital and area centers are all Adivasi’s (or tribals) from the nearby villages so the hospital has a very big sense of community and most of the time everyone knows everyone else that is in the hospital. It’s almost as if it is one big family at the hospital.

Walking to the village

                This comes into play with genetic counseling because nothing is very private in these parts. Pretty much everyone in the villages can tell you what is going on with other members of the villages. It is also very common for individuals to marry other members in the same village which is why the sickle cell gene has thrived in these tribes for so long. A big component of genetic counseling here has been to educate individuals about marrying individuals outside of their communities to reduce the prevalence of the sickle cell gene and the chance of passing it on to future generations. The health animators explained to me that more and more individuals are starting to marry outside of the community.

Vignesh (2 yrs) at the v

Today I went with one of the health animators, two lab technicians, and one counselor to a nearby village called Ellumaram. It was about a 30 minute walk from the hospital to the village but it was a nice day so it wasn’t too bad. Each family receives a family genetic card that has all the screening information for each member of the family. We screened about 10 different individuals (mainly children) in the village. The counselor, Rathi, explained to the parent why the kids were being screened but pretty much everyone in this community is aware of sickle cell and that everyone needs to be screened at some point. As of right now around 16,000 individuals have been screened for sickle cell trait. After spending the day at the village we headed back around 2 to eat lunch back at the area center near the hospital and then headed to the hospital. I wanted to finish up some more information for my pamphlets.

           

The family genetic card; Lakshmi measuring the weight of the babies, Another Lakshmi recording down all the information

Reena, Kala, and Sakthivel having their blood drawn by Rathi for their sickle cell screening 

    We were going to go out for dinner but Anna and Hayley were sick all day so Nicola, my sister and I went into town to get one last mango shake since we were leaving tomorrow and picked up some dinner in town and went back to the hostel to eat with Anna and Hayley. Some of the others back at the hostel were cooking up some snacks and it ended up being on big party when we got back. There were around 20 different people that were in and out of the hostel all night and we had a great time just chilling and getting to know everyone that was there. 

June 9th: Auto Rickshaw Ride in Ooty- Cows, People, Buses and much much more

Anna, Hayley, my sister and I crammed into an auto to take us to the railway station from the Rose Gardens. We wanted to buy some train tickets for Anna which didn't happen but this was our ride.

June 10: Theppakadu- Elephants, peacocks, bison, monkeys and deer

Nicola, Akshaya, Myself and Anna in the back of the jeep

Theppakadu reserve forest is part of the Mudhumalai National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary. It was about 45 minutes away from us and we wanted to visit to see if we could possible go on an elephant ride and drive through the forest to spot some animals. The wildlife sanctuary is also a tiger reserve but it was highly unlikely that we were going to see tigers. Another medical student, Nicola, had arrived from England the night before so she joined us on our trip to Theppakadu. We had a pretty relaxed morning since the four of us were still tired from our adventures the day before so we didn’t head out to the forest until around 1pm. We had arranged for a jeep to take us and drive us around and bring us back afterwards. Jeeps rides are always nice in this area because the scenery is gorgeous. You pretty much drive through forests/jungles no matter what direction you travel in.

This monkey was quite comfortable

Two deer facing off

We got to the reception center around 2pm and went to see if there were any elephant rides today but unfortunately they only had one elephant that was feeling well enough to give rides and there were people from the morning groups that were still waiting. We decided to grab some lunch and go on the van safari through the forest instead and then drive around to try and spot some elephants afterwards. We saw a ton of monkeys while we were walking around. We couldn’t buy tickets for the safari until 3pm so we had some time to kill. We ended up getting some parceled lunches and ate them outside of the reception center waiting for the tickets to go on sale. We got in line when people starting lining up but the concept of standing in line and waiting your turn does not seem to register. It happens everywhere but the sheer number of people that tried to cut in front of everyone with stupid excuses about what they weren’t waiting in line like everyone else was astounding. Fortunately we managed to get tickets and waited for our turn on the safari. All in all, the entire safari took us about 45 minutes. It was a rather boring ride because we only saw deer (which we have plenty of in Pittsburgh) and one lonely elephant at the end that Hayley was pretty sure was tied to the tree just so people could see one elephant during the ride.

                I think our driver saw that we were disappointed at the lack of animals that we had seen because he drove us past the border to the neighboring state of Karnataka to the Bandipur Reserve Forest to see if we could see elephants there. This ended up being awesome because we saw a ton of elephants there and a ton on our way back. We got the reserve just as the elephants (there were about 4 or 5) were being led away but immediately across the street there was a mother and baby elephant that were drinking water from the pump. We were the first ones there so we got out of the jeep and managed to get a nice group picture with the elephant and get really close before a crowd started forming. We were less than three feet away from the elephants which was definitely an awesome experience. We just kind of stood there and watched the two elephants take turns drinking water. I wish it was possible to bring a baby elephant back home or to own one in general. We couldn’t hang around for too long because we were trying to make it back to the Theppakadu Reserve to see the elephant feedings at 5:30pm but I think seeing the elephants definitely put all of us in better spirits and we were excited to head to the feeding. Even better for us, the sun was starting to go down so more and more elephants were starting to come out into the open. As we continued to drive back we stopped to see another pack of about six elephants that had ventured out near the roads and were giving themselves a mud/dirt shower. Eventually we made it back to the Theppakadu reserve to the elephant feeding camp and got to see about another eight elephants as they had their feedings. There were also a ton of hogs and peacocks that were roaming around the feeding camps.

At the feeding camp

Pretty cool trick 

                On the way back we ended up spotting a ridiculously large bison and another elephant that was carrying tree branches across the road. It would be our luck though that the cable for the gas pedal ended up breaking so we had to pull over on the side of the road as the driver attempted to fix it. We were kind of worried because it was already 6:30pm and it tends to get dark by 7pm and we didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of the forest after dark. The road that we were on gets shut down at 9pm everyday and doesn’t open up until 6am the next morning because the elephants and other animals wander the area freely. After awhile though the driver just gave up and pulled the cable through to the front of the car and held onto the cable with his other hand to drive the car. Definite props to him because he was steering with his right hand while operating the clutch and holding on to the cable with his left hand. We had him drop us off in town because we didn’t want to worry about the jeep going up and down the hills on the side roads leading to the hospital. 

Ridiculously large bison

We were meeting the others from the hostel (Sophie, Rahul, Vivek, and Mohantu) for dinner so while we waited for them to join us we decided that we needed to introduce Nicola to the amazing mango milkshakes at Lulu Bakers. Hayley decided to be adventurous and try a pistha shake with chocolate ice cream but the rest of us were not planning on messing with perfection and got the usual mango milkshake with vanilla ice cream. 

Mango Madness

The parotha guy

Sophie and Rahul found us just as we were finishing up so we all decided to head to Gudalur mess for dinner. The Gudalur mess has some of the best parothas that I have ever had. The other food is kind of questionable but the parothas end up being worth it. The five us had egg parothas that were amazing but with the exception of my sister the rest of us were falling us asleep while sitting at the table. It wasn’t that late but all the traveling and riding in the jeep seemed to be tiring us all out and Anna and Hayley were not feeling well to begin with. We somehow managed to stay awake till the other half of the group finished eating before heading back to the hostel. I walked back with Sophie and Rahul while the other four crammed into an auto. The walk back was super nice and refreshing and apparently the auto broke down three-quarters of the way to the hospital so the other half of the group had to end up walking part of the way anyway. It doesn’t seem like our group has much luck with vehicles this time around. It was back to work for the next day so we all decided that going to bed early would probably be the best bet.