Ooty - Tamil Nadu's Hill Station

My weekend travels continue! Sidd and I spent a weekend together in a hill station in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is the southeastern coastal state of India which has mountains running down the western spine. Ooty is located in these mountains and was quite chilly. In fact, Sidd was smart and brought two long sleeve shirts (one I wore the whole time!) It rained both days we were there which partially flooded the town making walking an interesting experience. We took a three hour horseback riding trip through the hills which was so much fun. Sidd hadn't really ridden a horse before so he was a great sport and a pretty good rider at that! It was just the two of us and a guide riding around. Very fun, but our butts are still hurting two days later. We also bought ample amounts of Ooty's famous homemade chocolate, but we both are wondering why it is famous, as it really wasn't that great. The town was really cute but busy with tourists as it was a weekend. We had an interesting bus ride back to B'lore which was partly great fun, and partly really unfortunate. Lets just say we were sitting in the "cool part of the bus" but the bus was totally NOT COOL - Sidd's 25 mysterious bug bites are testimony to that. We made some fun friends on the bus and I had the pleasure of using an Indian toilet in the middle of the night without a light... I probably didn't want to see the bathroom anyway... :o)

Sidd and his horse Raja (it's a boy - but you wouldn't know by the flowers on it's bridle)

Ooty lake reflections - my attempt at artistic photography

In other news - I'm flying home earlier than originally thought. I arrive in the States July 5th! Please let me know if you are in CO - I will want to see you :o)