89 Days in India

A simple but colorful Hindu Temple in a small farming village

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My walk into a farming village

Yesterday we left Nargahole National Park and drove seven hours into the mountains to a hill station town called Ooty. There are numerous hill stations throughout India and were used as places for the British to go to during the hot and humid months at the lower altitudes. Ooty has a population of just under 200,000 people and is surrounded by lush green vegetation including tea and coffee fields. Our drive took us through numerous small villages of which I had the opportunity to get out of the van and do some walking with my camera. Walking in the country side was one of my highlights this week. Everyone, even women walking by themselves, would look at me, smile and say hello. Just like in the United States the people here in the country are very friendly. I noticed too that there were a lot of Hindu temples everywhere. Some are for a specific family while others for a village. The fence posts here are cut slabs of granite, pretty cool actually. The school kids were all in uniform and it looks like each school as their own uniform colors. Cows here are not branded in the way we know with a hot iron and specific brand. Here cows have their horns colored and the color combination signifies who the owner is. Not only is it colorful but painless I’m sure. Ooty is an interesting town and while on a walk in town I noticed many Indian tourists but very few foreign tourists, maybe it's just the time of year. This time of year it's fairly cold, about 50 degrees fahrenheit with a lot of fog and some light rain. Mom and Donnie decided to skip this afternoons exploration into town so it was just us guys. We found a great chocolate shop with a great variety of outstanding chocolates (should have bought more!) and then we stopped at the Sunset Cafe for a very late lunch. I had speghetti and Lee had pizza, Steve just had a sampling of each of our dishes. Great food. After another walk our driver picked us up and took us back to our hotel where later that night I had the best lamb chops I've ever had. Grilled to perfection and seasoned only with salt and pepper, these chops just didn't need anything else. Yesterday was a very long day, today equally as long and that post coming as soon as I can get the photos edited. In the mean time enjoy some of the photos from yesterday.