Oh, the weather outside is...

...blippin' HOT.  It's ridiculous.  I'm sure it gets to somewhere in the 30s (Celsius) during the day.  The worst is between 3 and 4 pm, where you just want to kill yourself (or maybe take cold shower, but there's a water shortage...).

Now, I've been in hot climates before (hello, Texas.  And Ghana.), but never in dry heat.  Everyone always says that dry heat is awesome and humid heat feels like you're stuck in [pardon my French] a ballsack.  I disagree.  Not with the latter point, but definitely with the former.  I actually prefer the humid heat.  Even though you're unpleasantly sticky, at least you're not ridiculously dehydrated.  The dry heat makes everything feel/look like a barren dying wasteland.  It kind of sucks.

Also, it's confusing, because it's March, but leaves are constantly falling/have already falled off of trees and it's scorching hot all the time.  It's a mix of what fall looks like and what summer [/hell] feels like, so I'm very confused.  And my skin and hair are continuously angry, because everything is so dry and unpleasant.  Booo.

The only refuge with this dry heat is that it actually cools off significantly at night, to the point where I have to cover my body with a sheet at around 6am.  Apparently, this will no longer happen in April.  And it will be even hotter in May.  Oh, summer in India!

Vacation = awesome

I returned back from my travels around Coorg and Ooty yesterday, and although it feels good to be back home, the vacation was FANTASTIC and I'm sad it has come to an end. 

Here's a brief review of all the awesome things that happened while traveling:
- Smoked some hookah in Bangalore with Nikolai the Sunday night before my departure for farther places.  It was an awesome transition from Rishi Valley to traveling, and the soundtrack was AWESOME.  Huzzah!
- Hiked to a waterfall in Coorg -- the 8-10km (depending on whom you ask) hike through coffee plantations and beautiful forest was GORGEOUS
- After arriving at the waterfall, we found ourselves at a Bollywood movie shoot.  Um...win.
- Bought many kilos of Indian coffee beans, as well as amazing Indian spices (so. much. cinnamon.) in the Coorg market.  AWESOME.
- I have missed Chinese food.  In the past week, I had gotten my fill.  Nom nom nom nom.
- Went to Dubare Forest Reserve to BATHE RETIRED ELEPHANTS.  This was, perhaps, the highlight of the trip.  Old elephants were walked out of their pens to the river, where they peacefully laid down to be scrubbed by their caretakers.  I got to scrub an old lady elephant.  She was the sweetest.  Some elephants got feisty and sprayed the tourists.  It was awesome.  Another elephant kind of flipped his shit and ran away to the deep part of the river -- the caretakers had to get a much bigger elephant to push him out and back to his appropriate place.  It was awesome.  I love elephants.  We then got to feed the elephants.  Best day ever?  Mayhaps.
- The weather in Ooty was AWESOME.  It was light-jacket weather ALL DAY every day!  Amazing!  It was cuddleweather ALL NIGHT.  So great to feel cold again! 
- Went around town to see some fantastic botanical gardens, rowed a boat in the Ooty Lake, climbed some hills to see magical overviews of the city.  All in amazing weather! 
- A bunch of people make their living by making homemade chocolate in Ooty.  Epic win.
- Rode horses up the hills in gorgeous forests.  Beautiful, scenic, fantastic.  Our horses were also super sweet.  We fed them lots of carrots.
- Bought and planted flowers.  I miss gardening and grandma.
- Found non-dairy whipping cream and had a tremendous amount of coffee shakes!  NOM NOM NOM NOM
- Speaking of noms: shwarma. 
- Back in Bangalore, went to karaoke with Nandan.  What an awesome time! Dancing and singing with some neat Indians.  Crazy great stuff!!


Now, it's back to Rishi Valley, where we're hosting a training for some peeps from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.  Fun stuff!  I've got to complete 10 milestones in a month, so this is a challenge I am looking forward to! 

My life is exciting beyond belief.


If you want postcards, send me your address!!

New Travels

My travels to Coorg and Ooty are starting in an hour!
Overnight in Bangalore on the way and then off to the cooooooolness of the Western Ghats!

It's been much too hot at Rishi Valley.

Can't wait for a week full of awesome.

New phone number!

My phone might or might not have gotten stolen in Chennai**, so I now have a new number.  Call me, honeys, it gets boring in the evenings (which is mornings, your time).


+91 889 756 7457

Awesome.


<3,
T


**Do you notice how we/people automatically assume that things get stolen when something goes missing?  The immediate reaction isn't the thought of us being careless or us misplacing something, but someone else stealing it.  This might be just a fact for me and the people I know, but I feel like we've been trained by society (to have this expectation) to always assume that it's other people's fault.  I hate that.