This was written on the first day (Friday) of my recent trip to Yercaud, India. We had a youth camp up there in the mountains and I thought I would keep track of my experiences over the weekend. Unfortunately, I only wrote about one of the days, but it was the most interesting, so think of it as me sparing you from the rest of the details.
After waiting for the bus for 2 1/2 hours, it finally showed up so that we could start our adventure. Apparently it was a government bus and government workers here typically are not very conscientious about their work. We were supposed to leave at 6 a.m. which is when I showed up at the Division office, ready to go (to my surprise I was the only one there). After five minutes of looking around, wondering if I had been left, the leaders of the group showed up and the rest of the people filtered in over the next hour. To summarize, we had finally decided to skip the idea of breakfast on the bus and began to eat when the bus pulled in.
It was a 5 hour drive to Yercaud (our destination). The ride was not uneventful - one highlight was a bunch of us guys walking out into a field to relieve ourselves only to be chased off by the gentleman who apparently farmed it. Other than that, the climb up the mountain was the only point of interest. One event that occurred during the climb was that I finally obtained photographic proof that there are monkeys in India! We must have seen at least 5 groups of monkeys on our way up the mountain. We would pass them sitting on the wall and they would chase the bus. I'm not sure if this was because some of the guys were leaning out the windows holding banana peels or if they just enjoy chasing large vehicles.
Another interesting note about the climb involved the road. It was very narrow and had 20 tight, hairpin turns (I didn't count them, they had signs that would say "hairpin n/20"). To get an idea of how tight the turns were, know that the bus actually did not make one of them - it had to stop and perform a 3-point maneuver in order to continue climbing the mountain.
Now that we're at our quarters we have had a chance to see just how nice they are. We're staying at a Catholic institution called the "House of Peace." We saw some nuns when we were pulling into the driveway. The only issue I foresee is that the beds are ridiculously hard. I would be worried about toilet paper, but I was smart this time and brought my own. The next thing will be to see what the afternoon hike has in store.
Later Friday evening...
Well I definitely have some even more convincing proof of monkeys' existence in India now. This afternoon after a short devotional talk we went on a "nature walk." This basically consisted of walking through the town (or hill station as the Indians call it) of Yercaud. The town is actually quite sizable and it is an interesting one too because there are Catholic schools and churches everywhere (at least I think that's interesting). After walking through the town we finally reached our destination - a stunning viewpoint which looked down on the plains below.
While our group was there, taking pictures and goofing off, a couple of guys started attempting to talk to me in broken English. They asked me, "Who are you?"
To which I replied, "Uhhh, my name is Steve." Then they asked me what was in my water bottle. I told them it was water.
"Hot water?" they asked.
"No, cold water," I replied. At this point, their friend joined the fun. Next they asked me to take their picture. I complied and showed it to them. Then, after some talking amongst themselves and laughing, I think they asked for me to have a picture taken with them. So I had someone from our group snap the picture.
After that they left me alone for a while, but later they came up and started to talk to me again, but this time I could not understand them. One of the group (Mary) translated and apparently they thought I was alone and were trying to get me to go to the garden they worked at nearby. When they found out I was with the group and did not want to go to the garden they pretty much left me alone.
Shortly after this stimulating conversational experience is when the real magic happened: A monkey jumped up on the railing of the observation deck!
I was quite excited and quickly snapped a picture. Then Athul went over to stand next to the monkey and I was preparing myself to take a picture of that, but just as I was about to hit the shutter-button, James lunged at the monkey. To my surprise, the monkey lunged back, and this is the moment that I hit the button and took the picture.
Next the monkey (who was now joined by his buddy) jumped down from the railing and started towards the people. In the panic that ensued I side-stepped the monkey (with at least three people behind me using me as a human shield (I felt like I was tanking - that's for you, Rob)) all the while holding my camera up, trying to set up another good picture. I did manage to get another one, but not until both monkeys had crossed the observation deck.
Then they disappeared over the railing, emerging only once more to quickly nab some chips off the railing.
So that was Friday. As I said, the rest of the weekend wouldn't make nearly as exciting of a story. It can be summed up as thus: we had a number of spiritual talks, I got "the trots" and was out of commission for Saturday night (I suspect the beet salad), and we went on a couple of other hikes around the Yercaud area. All said, it was a pretty fun excursion and I definitely got to see and experience some new things. If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from the weekend (including a few more shots of monkeys!) you can check out my Picasa Web Album.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! I didn't get the day off from work, but one of the American workers here (Brenda Robinson) invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner! I can't wait. :P
