Monday 10th February

An oasis in the heat of Ramnad, our trip to Kodaikanal was a welcome break. We got there at three-thirty on Saturday. It's two thousand metres above sea-level so the temperature was about 19 degrees instead of 35! The journey was terrifying, the road only just hugging the sides of the mountains, winding round on an incredibly long trip to the top. Every time we went round a corner you lost sight of the road and could only see the thousand-foot drop. I spent most of the journey with my eyes closed but when I did look, the view was breathtaking. Near the top, it started to resemble some parts of say, North Wales and was so similar to home it wasn't like India at all.

Jerry's uncle met us in 'Kody' and sent us off to catch some lunch while he waited for us. Yesu confidently took us (protesting) in search of a restaurant and eventually we ignored him and went to the next one we came to. When we got back to our room, Jerry's uncle had gone so we went for a wander round the beautiful lake.

We did a lot of waiting around when the man with the key to the room with our bags in had disappeared, we had to break in in the end! We went to Jerry's uncle's house and had some South Indian chicken masala (I got the heart and the brain!). We had to share beds - I got Yesu, who couldn't sleep and kept the rest of us awake all night.

Kodaikanal (which means 'Summer Scene' by the way) is a beautiful place and it's actually cold! It was so weird feeling cold again. There is an International School there, so you see a lot of foreigners around. Whenever we passed some, Yesu asked us which country they were from. He wants to know what we've got against Americans, and couldn't understand why they make us cringe so much.¹

It's a very touristy place, like Lake Windermere or Bowness in the summer and was full of Indian tourists as well as others. We had some baked beans (!), tuna (!), cheese spread (!!) and cheese (!!!).

Yesterday we went bike-riding with Jerry's uncle's son as our guide (a little terror and a half). We went to the park and didn't meet up with Jerry's uncle because he waited at the room and we waited by the boats. The Terror didn't want to go boating, so Jerry and Yesu went while C., Terror and myself went to sample the pizza (not so good). The morning was spent waiting around until we all met up again for lunch. Then the mist came down and the spectacular views Jerry's uncle had lined up for us were a bit less spectacular. Then we came back to Ramnad.

Now you might say that sixteen hours on uncomfortable buses is a lot to pay for one night of cold but it was wonderful! Even if it was full of tourists.