August 1- Kodai Kanal

Today we got up early ate, packed and left for Kodai Kanal. On the train we sat in the woman and children only car, it was really nice. There was a really nice girl we talked to a lot. She bought us cucumbers; this is when everything gets awkward. Because they were pre cut and pre peeled and then covered in something that looked wet, like it could have been made with water, and so you want to say no, but there is no polite way to do it, so you take them and you have to make a choice, do a chuck this out the window and stay healthy or do I eat this and risk getting who knows what. For those of you who have never had to do this it’s a horrible position to be in, so you take it, nibble some off, and slowly throw it out the window, feeling guilty the entire time, but rationalizing that its better to be alive then to not waste food.
We got to Kodai road and did a bunch of walking back and forth to find the bus we needed, we got on that bus, and got off at another place, took a rickshaw down the street, to the kodai kanal bus. On the bus was a pink and blue inflatable dinosaur. India is always surprising. On the way there was a man walking his warthog through the city, because of course when you have a warthog you have to take him on walks! And there were LOTS of monkeys! The monkeys were drinking out of cups and catching food that people would throw to them.
I sat on the engine the whole way (4 hours or so) it got really hot, the bus had to work really hard to climb up the mountains. A 9 year old girl slept on my arm for part of the ride.
The only thing separating the bus from, well nothing or certain death anyway was a maybe 1.5 foot high cement wall that combined with how they drive here made for the scariest bus ride of my life. When we got to Kodai we followed this guy to a hotel for 250 Rs. Its not bad the bed is really comfortable, and it has a western toilet (which is always a plus) but no shower just buckets. Neither of us were very hungry and it was getting late, so we ate a package of biscuits and went to sleep. (under a blanket because it was actually chilly!)