Home Again...

I returned to Indore on Friday morning while it might be great to be back and living a regular routine I miss being on tour very much. I had an AMAZING time, that's an understatement but I don't know how else to put it (hope the caps lock helped).
There were 18 students, mostly from Germany or Canada and the US. From start to finish, the trip went far to quickly. We started in Nagpur where a lot of the students are living and took a night bus ride from there. Most other nights were spent at hotel except for a few that we spent rocking on the bunks of trains.
 From the get go, we were busy every day visiting dozens of temples and other sights and monuments. We spent a few days simply relaxing on beaches or strolling through markets bargaining for souvenirs and gifts. Mostly though, it was a wake up at 7 and non-stop doing things until dinner time even is those things were sitting on a bus for a few hours watching India roll by.
ONe of my favorite days came towards the end of the middle of the trip (if that makes sense). We started the day in warm and balmy Mysore but by the end of the day our bus had climbed thousands of feet into the mountains in a hill station city call Ooty. The drive was breathtaking in a way I had never experienced before. We drove high above the valley we had come from winding on dangerous switchbacks, a sign at each hairpin bend reminding drivers how many people had died there previous years. The scenes were stunning though, lush, unbroken green of the wildlife preserve spread out in the valley below. Trees and bushes clung to the rocked mountain side and above us craggy peaks soared into the clouds. The vegetation at the bottom could only have been described as tropical but at we ascended, it began to resemble the forests at home or in the Pacific Northwest. Both the small villages we passed and the city of Ooty itself were much like what I expect to find if I ever make it to the small mountainside villages in South America. Terraces covered the hills growing the areas produce as well as thousands of pounds of tea to be exported.
 The hotel we stayed in had a magnificent view of the town below, it was built terraced into the side of the mountain with the wall facing out made all out of glass. The whole time we were there a cloud layer surrounded the mountains and valleys making us feel like we were in our own world up there that we had driven to.
Another of my favorite places we stayed was Goa, though it was a favorite for a whole different set or reasons. Goa is THE vacation destination to go to in India, it's a major beach town. We got to spend long relaxing hours on the beaches. Another night we spent in a houseboat in the backwaters of Allappy where we passed single homes on lone islands and Indians rowing by in small homemade canoes. It was another extremely relaxing night, we listened to music, danced, swam, and watched one of the best sunsets ever!
I wish I could go on to describe every temple, every beach, every moment of tour but that would be beyond my and the computers capabilities. I plan on posting pictures as soon as I can but if you're my friend on facebook you can see both my pictures and the hundreds that my friends have posted.