Travel Day to Kodai

 It has been muggy and hot in Mahabalipuram (temperatures in the upper 80s), though the evenings have been pleasant. Lot of biting bugs, mosquitos and such.  I have a ton of bites, mostly on my feet.  I don't think that my insect repellant is working.  I used Bruce's recipe of 50% eucalyptus oil and 50% lemon grass oil.  It smells better than DEET. George bought a different solution.   Maybe I will try that when we go to Mumbai.  

We had the upstairs room

Janet, Don, Paul Z

We packed up and put our bags out when we went for breakfast at 7 am.  It was a slow process getting checked out.  We had paid for our rooms ahead of time, but we still had to pay for all the extras, like our meals. We were on the road by 8:45 am.  

Cheryl arrived last night or I should say this morning about 2 am.

Jewel

The urn on the left is the coffee decoction (a thick coffee syrup) and the one on the right was the hot milk.  Make your own latte.

Cheryl

Our 14 passengers mini-bus

The gang's all ready

 The first stop was a bathroom stop around 11 am

They had a squat pot and a western toilet.  All  5 guys crammed into the gents room.  Don thought they should take a picture for the blog.  ;-)

Don treated us to a cup of chai.  

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Interesting decor

Truck load of tomatoes

Cows are packed like sardines

Bananas

We are packed like sardines

Lunch stop around 1:30 pm in Trichi or (Tiruchirapalli)

This is the closest I could come to taking a picture of the Trichy sign.  

Most of us had the thali meal.  It came with rice and a few other things. 

It was fun to watch the mountains get closer.

When we left the plains it was 97 degrees and humid.  It gradually got cooler as we went up. I lost internet connection for a while.  My phone still indicated that it was 97 degrees until we checked in at the Villa Retreat.  Then it jumped to 64 degrees.

We stopped at Rattail Falls view point but there was no falls sighting, we saw monkeys instead.

The monkey looked away just as I took the selfie..

Another stop at Silver Cascade.  Only a few of us got out to take a picture.

Not a lot of water.

Two girls wanted Don to take a picture of them with Carla .  We have had that happen before, as well.

After the Silver Cascade stop we went directly to the Villa Retreat which is located right at the beginning of Coaker's Walk.  We got there about 6:30 pm.  Just when Google maps indicated that we would.

It was quite a process geting us all checked in.  They made copies of all of our passports. Then one by one they checked us in.  When it was George and my turn someone carried our luggage and showed us to our room.  It was a good thing. We met back in the lobby to walk to the dining room for our amazing dinner.   Jon, Ros, and her daughter, Carolyn, met us in the lobby.  Bruce and his wife, Ann, joined us as well. Don's brother, Peter, was there as well to greet us.  His class reunion was just finishing.  He did not join us for dinner.  It was nice seeing him again.

Me, Ros, Jewel, Don, Carla, Carolyn, and Tim at one table. Ann, Paul Z, Janet, Bruce, Paul H, Shanta, Jon, Cheryl, and Vivian at the other table.  George took the picture and was sitting next to me.  We are just missing Rebecca.  She was connecting with her sister, who was here for her class reunion. So all together there are 12 people from our class.

Everything was brought in a certain order.  It was interesting that the rice came at the end. What a flavor explosion!  I forgot to take pictures of the desserts.  There was so much food.  We headed back to our suite to settle in.

The view from our room

I was able to use my phone hotspot for my blog.  They do not have free Wi-fi in the rooms.