Searchings of a Kiwi lass

well here I am AGAIN attempting to get back into the blog swing of things! he he, late as ever!
MUNNAR was / is an incredibly beautiful small town in the Keralan hills - the nearest thing the state has to a hill station so it was much cooler than Trivandrum or Varkala- a welcome thing!
It was a beautiful journey up those hills and I happened to have a driver who was obviously practising for some kind of competition - what should have taken five hours took less than four, and we stopped for about TEN minutes for lunch - the bus was even pulling away as I came back from the banana stand, geezz its funny how one has this idea about India being a laid back place!? Not on this day!!

Anyways, who was there to await me in Munnar but AMBIKA and LEVIK!! Yayyy! What a reunion we had.. After much hugging and jumping about I got my forehead anointed with red paste and my mouth stuffed with cashew sweets, and we heafed it up to the Shubramanya temple... so beautiful. We made it just in time for both Arati (lighting of lamp, such a sacred and special ceremony) and sunset. After this we went to eat thali while Ambika searched the market place for pink Holi powder with which to dye her hair...
Munnar, you know we rocked you... on the days that followed all manner of strange and wonderful things happened whereever we were. It is just so cool hanging out with a mad unicyclist! It basically means there is a show anywhere you go... Levik and I were waiting for a motorbike to arrive one day, and what did he do in the spare minutes of waiting? Pull out a crystal ball of course, and start to do an impromptu show which drew a crowd of about thirty men. So much laughter! So we promised them a show that night, with my guitar and the famous 'one wheel' cycle! It was great! I ripped out a version of 'Rebel Music' with verses tailored for Munnar - 'oh we're drinking tea in the sun' and 'you can put the money.. in my bag!' etc while Levik weaved his magic. Rakshaman!!!

On Ambika/ Levik's last day (and Angel, he was also there - Levik's bro that is) we got an email from SAM and lo and behold, he was somewhere in Munnar! So we searched high and low for him, to no avail although he did manage to find us in the morning half an hour before their bus departed... REUNION CENTRAL!!
What great times we had... biking thru the tea plantations and calling 'I love India!' to all the poor pedestrians we passed... one well-to-do lookin woman also gave us the 'hang loose' sign as we passed them which was so funny we nearly fell off laughing... Sam and I went walking too, one beautiful day up a few good lookin hills and found a life sized crucifix - urgh. Little scary! but it was good.. we searched the town for 'Sharja' a very delicious (non vegan I'm afraid) milkshake, we ate idli and dosa at small dhaba's, we danced with boys at music shops.. and left together on another beautiful bus ride, I towards Pondicherry which I have already written about, and Sam towards Ooti... goodbye my brother! goodbye Om group! what times we had.. have just written a song about it which I will pen down here soon... my next unwritten destination.. Mamallapuram xxoo