And their off again....!!

Having gone to bed at 10pm we were then picked up at 2.30am ready for the journey. Our friends Praveen and Miriam (that's them in the pic and their kids Sunny (boy) and Zippora (girl) with our kids below) have a good sized people carrier with a DVD player in so the journey went very fast and it was a great way to get to know their family better. They are a great family and trustees of the Fishermen Trust. We get on really well and the kids just fit so well together.We stopped half way for breakfast which was a great way to break this very long journey.

Arrived at the base of Kodaikanal and then climbed up a very steep climb (Kodaikanal is 1600 feet above sea level! Read about it here) to St Peter’s School where we were staying for the Church weekend. On the way we saw all sorts of sites in these phenominal hills. Best experince on the way up was eating 'jack fuit' for the first time of my life. Gorgeous!! Sort of pineapple type flavour but not quite as sweet. Eat loads of it! See the comparison with my head in the pic!!

The school was staggeringly basic and when we got shown ‘our room’, well, you wouldn’t believe it!! It was really grot. 3 wood school boy type beds, a bed on the floor, a (damp) blanket on each bed, shower/loo that was, well, undescribable, with no hot water, loo lid broken and well….the story goes on and on….

We were hear for 2 days before the main group came to help Praveen and Miriam prepare for the others coming and set up the rooms etc. Great!!! Sarah struggling lots with this. We had paid to come here and had been led to believe it was nice bungalows etc!!! Add to this it rained heavy on night 1 and that meant that everything was even more damp. I think after Avalanche the kids and I were ready for anything – anything was better in terms of living conditions so what we had at the school was OK. For Sarah, having lived at the flat, this was her second major challenege (the first being us being in Avalanche).

The kids slept well as they seem to just settle anywhere and sleep anywhere too. Damp beds and one damp blanket doesn't stop them (or us!):

I spent spare moments keeping a diary up to date (for the sake of this blog) but even that can be a challenge at times when the plug socket is hanging out of the wall and the power goes on and off intermitently!! Still a bed provides a most excellent docking station for the laptop which came in very useful with some of the talks etc.

Nice meal at ‘The Tibetan Brothers’ restaurant (I love the way they call these ramshackled places ‘restaurants’). This was a nice Chinese that was very clear about the fact that Tibet should not be run by China!! Big posters and leaflets on the table etc.

Kodaikanal Kodaikanal stands in a 7,202feet high at the southern edge of the central part of the Palani Hills & has a large Tibetan settlement which runs most of the shops and markets etc.

Strange seeing them in India really.....