Flowers, Elephants, and Fights, oh Munnar!

Tuesday! We did a lot of little things on Tuesday of the tour!  First we went to an elephant riding facility.  THe J-term (january term) people were super pumped to ride an elephant.  I was absolutely planning on it, but on the way over I was talking to a girl on our trip, Nicole from Canada, and she said that she was reading about this place and they beat the elephants when they're young so they'll cooperate.  We decided to opt out on this one, and later in the semester find an elephant sanctuary which is a few hours away from Bangalore.  I don't know about you, but I have never been super up close to an elephant.  Those suckers are humorously large.  It's absolutely amazing their size but their gentleness.  All I wanted to do was hug them and try to fit my arms around their leg, which probably would have been impossible.

SO BIG

Look how tall the elephant is compared to the guy!

My roomate feeding it!

 After the elephants we went to this stunning flower garden.  I decided my new favorite flowers are fuschias!  All of the flowers here are bright, warm colors because of the heat year round.  We experienced people asking to take pictures with us for the first time, and it was super awkward...

The sign was referring to Julia, not the flowers

About ten women kept up this whole garden!

So many pots

Perdy

Such bright colors!!

I want an archway with hanging flowers when I grow up

After that we went on a speedboat on the lake right next to the Munapetty Dam.  It's really cool to do things here that would never be allowed in the US.  The driver kept going back and forth really fast so we kept falling over, and at one point he asked for a camera and he let go of the wheel and turned around to take pictures of us.  I currently don't have them, but I'll post later.  The view was incredible.  We were in the valley for the first time, so there was just mountains towering on every side of us.  It was so lush, green everywhere!

A market we stopped by!

The giant lake, we're on the bridge over the dam here

The "boathouse"

Hannah and I before the boatride!

Ya know, just a view from the boat

Really just excuses to put more pretty pictures up

Jacob was really cool about having us try new food.  He would randomly stop the bus to get fresh produce for us to try

It's a real, live passionfruit!

Carrots pulled right from the ground! Super sweet

We were then off to lunch.  On the was be saw this mountainside village, and it was one of the coolest colonies of houses I have ever seen.  You know the typical picture of greece's neighborhoods where its a bunch of beautiful white boxy houses?

Credit to mygreecetravelblog.com and google image search hehe

Well as we were driving, across the valley we saw basically this, but all the houses were bright colors! I am falling more and more in love with the bright colors that they make everything here.  They're not afraid to be different and gaudy and crazy.  Today we came home and our apartment building was yellow all of a sudden....

Taking pictures is hard in a moving bus, it's a lot cooler than it looks here, I swear!

The hotel where we had lunch had a crazy view, like everything else here.  it was like someone stuck a floor in the side of a mountain and hoped for the best.  I like the welcoming culture here.  In the lobby, they had a wicker bassinet and crib.  During lunch, this couple came in with a child and they just moved the crib up right next to the couple's table so the baby could play and the parents could eat with both hands.

For all the babies we brought on this trip

Look at our view!

After we discovered a park in the back, that had a seesaw, a merry go round, and a creepy tree covered in cotton.  It was nice to get outside and play and goof off for a little, because most of the time we had to be constantly aware of what was happening around us.  There was also a pond that had a fish that looked pregnant.  If you ever played Insaniquarium growing up, it looks exactly like the fish Preggo

Swingin on a mountain

Note: creepy cotton tree in the corner

No hands ma!

Beauuuutiful garden

We then went to a tea plant! Literally world's busiest day.  It was super cool to see how tea was made.  We took a private tour (shocker) and this guy explained it all the way through.  Little known fact: all tea is made from the same plant.  It's the difference in how it's prepared and the part of the leaf you use that gives you varieties of tea.  Green tea is just steamed leaves, and the only kind you can make at home.  The rest is oxidized in these big machines, then crushed a bunch of times over.  The last part is this sifter that separates the different pieces of crushed tea leaves into 6 sizes.  The different sizes determine the strength of the flavor and aroma of the tea.  I was weirdly impressed with the sifter.  It's so genius   And then I got a bunch of yummy, fresh tea straight from the farms we were walking through a day earlier!

Ripple Teas are the biggest tea company here

Crushed up, steamed tea leaves!

Crushed tea after oxidation!

And sometimes they randomly decorate with heads

If it has to do with tea, he knows the answer

The maaaagical sifter

These machines crush the tea!

Crushed tea coming out of the machine and runs up a conveyor

This boiler heats the steamer and oxidizer.
It was so cool to see them put more wood in it!

 We went back to the hotel, then after dinner we went to see a show in Kerala of the ancient art of Kalaripayattu (oh goodness I hope thats right, otherwise this could be really misinformative).  This is actually incredible.  There were 5 guys, and they were basically in this stone pit with all these weapons that any museum would kill to have.

Praying to their weapons before they start.
There was all these bowls, and they filled them with oil and a wick,
so it was basically a makeshift candle.  They touched
each weapon then their head before starting.

They were also big into yelling then doing things in unison

At one point they were using these whips and they basically looked like varsity ribbon twirling.  They were strips of metal on handles that they swung everywhere.

 A girl in our group, Brenda, volunteered to get jumped over, and this guy lept over 6 people.

Onto a sack filled with hay, for safety...

They jumped through a flaming hoop at one point, like Gymkana (holla UMD!).

Because everything is more fun with fire

These guys make the US gymnastics team look pathetic because they're doing all the same things but on a clay dirt floor and with weapons.

He did a split so fast the picture was blurred

I don't know about you, but I watch TV like this

What.

Thats some Cirque du Soleil stuff right there

At one point 2 guys bent backwards far enough that they grabbed a flower off the floor with their teeth.

Romantic?

Ultimate fight club

This guy was jumping up a kicking a ball like 8 feet in the air