Nilgiris Diaries Part 3

25 Jan 2010
The day began at 0600 AM in the morning. And it started with a cup of steaming hot tea, more than welcome after the crazily cold night, courtesy SAH staff (May God bless them all!) At 0630 I woke up my roommate Dinju. While she did her daily chores, I ironed my clothes. Then I took my bath and had breakfast. We left at around 0845 AM L 45 minutes later than the expected time; though it was our fault not getting ready on time. Every minute was being counted, especially by Sohini who wanted to spend maximum time possible in the virgin forest - The Longwood Sholas – otherwise out of bound. It was just amazing. The thick dense forests covered the entire canopy. The small swamps which, as we were told, turned out to be a huge source of water. We couldn’t see much fauna though - there was a Bisen and a giant Malabar squirrel. Sohini spotted a few birds and got a leech on herself. But otherwise it was great fun. We clicked a lot of pics. On our way back we were enjoying with songs. Sundar (Nepal) knew so many Hindi songs and old ones at that. We just got lost. Then we went to Sullivan Memorial and interacted with students of riverside school. One girl, Zen, was proving to be too hard to convince over the fact that climate change can be combated and sustainable development is possible. Her points of discussion were really thought provoking. A healthy discussion made us all probe deeper for the plausible solutions to environmental concerns. After lunch there we went to kodannad view point. It was simply superb. Gokul sir taught us how to draw a basic landscape and well I would like to think that I did a decent job J . From there we started for Wellington theatre to watch Avatar (the third time for me) I slept throughout the whole journey. Movie was good and we reached here at about 0945 in SAH. Had dinner and then a visit to Godwin's room to collect our kits. The jacket, t-shirt and pants – all were oversize for meL, but at least the cap fitted. And then, retirement to our rooms – greedily waiting for the next day adventure!