We are now more than halfway through the semester. It’s hard to believe really. It feels like it was just yesterday that I arrived to India, had my first lecture at the resort, and took my first stroll around Pondy – but according to the calendar, I have been here for more than 6 weeks! Time surely flies.
The pictures attached to this post are from last weekend when I went to a place called Ooty with a bunch of people from my class. Ooty is a small town and municipality located in the mountains in the western part of the state of Tamil Nadu. Due to the high altitude (2240m) the climate was very different from what we had grown accustomed to in Pondy. It was less humid and the temperatures were lower, dropping to around 10 degrees Celsius during night. I didn’t mind though. I enjoyed the fresh cool air and the fact that my skin was not sticky from sweat all the time.
Some of the cool things we did in Ooty was to take the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, which is a UNESCO heritage site and one of the oldest railways in India. The trip through the mountains was beautiful and I took many photos some of which I have posted below. We were also so fortunate to see a wild mom elephant with her baby as they were walking along the rails. On the second day of our stay, we went on a hike in the forest and to some viewpoints in the nearby area. What was funny was that almost everywhere we went we seemed to be the bigger tourist attraction. People would come up to us and ask if they could take a picture with us or they would pretend that they were taking selfies but secretly turning themselves and the camera so that we appeared in the background of the photo. Families would ask us to pose with their kids, and the kids would stare and maybe say hi, and if we replied, they would look like we just made their day. Most of the time it was fun but there were a couple of situations where it was a bit annoying. This could be said about one situation especially, which took place on the third day. We had just visited a tea factory and museum and were sitting outside on a bench just chilling and chatting when a big group of guys came over and one guy pulled out his camera and started taking pictures of us while the others posed besides us. We told them that they should not just take pictures without asking and that we were not in the mood for it but they pretended to not notice. It was very annoying that they didn’t care about us at all but luckily this was the exception more than the rule and all in all the trip was very pleasant. It was indeed a nice break from the studies and the preparations for the upcoming group exam. Which reminds me: I need to get back to my readings!
