Adventuring Around Town
Saturday 13 July
One of the French contingency in the group has a really great travel guide book for Kerala where we found our lodging for the night- the "Stream Valley Cottages". Holy crap this place was beautiful. The staff were really wonderful and accommodating, the food was fantastic, AND they had silverware (!!) We ended up with five cottages for 14 of us, and I was able to sleep in a real big girl bed. Bliss
The view from the outdoor eating area. Even with the constant rain it was beautiful!
After getting settled into our rooms and having a late lunch (simple, but soooo good!) everyone separated into smaller groups to do their own thing. I ended joining up with Smita and Marie (my fellow North Americans, Smita is from Michigan and Marie is from Quebec, Canada) to venture into town and see if we couldn't find some tea.
I love how random life is, and how you just sort of have to be flexible and take advantage of opportunities when they come up. While walking out towards the front of the hotel to sort out how to get into town, we ran into the GM of the property, Jibin, who mentioned an off road rally taking place just down the street from the place we were staying, and he offered to take us there.
As we were driving down a very bumpy road Jibin told us about the annual Monsoon festival- a three day event with tons of rain related activities- one of which was an off road mud race. We made it to the finish area after the race had ended, but at this point the drivers were just messing around and doing cookies in very big mud puddles, and it was so fun to watch :)
Boys will be boys all over the world.
After watching the muddy shenanigans for about 20 or 30 minutes we decided to make the most of the daylight and find some local shops- i.e.- tea shops!
First shop we found was tended to by this gentleman- he was so helpful and sweet I had to buy some green tea from him :)
A bit farther down the street we found a shop that had the most wonderful smelling Cardamom and Vanilla tea blend- I cannot wait for this winter in San Francisco, for cold rain and grey skies so I can build a fire in my little living room, make a pot of this and curl up with a blanket and a book and not leave the house for an entire day. I seriously think it's the most wonderful smelling tea I have ever experienced! And the woman who worked at the shop was adorable as well. While I think they get a lot of visitors and tourists from other areas, I don't think they are used to foreigners. we were somewhat of a novelty and everyone was very polite, asked us where we were from, and if we needed help. It was really, really nice :)
The woman with the wonderful cardamom and vanilla tea.
The little street we were walking down had a lot of personality
By 6:00 or so we were ready for some tea to warm up and escape a bit of the rain. The cutest brother and sister were playing, waiting for their grandparents (who ran the shop) to be done
So, after a chai break and catching our breath we went back to the hotel to just relax, do a bit of reading and writing, oh, and watch a little bollywood :)
Ended up passing out around 9:00 from exhaustion!
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