Last update

After our auto-rickshaw driver pulled onto a third side street, this one even more isolated than the last—with people around small fires on the side of the road by ramshackle homes—Megan and I began to wonder if this was really the way to get to the nicest hotel in Chennai, or if our trip was about to take a turn for the worse.

It turned out to be just fine; the driver was just pretending not to be lost until he could ask someone how to get to the ITC hotel. We arrived there at 6:30 am, argued our way into the business center, called various hotels in town and figured out that we needed to get across town to a different hotel.

We hopped in a cab that, as he was about to pull onto the road, asked us which terminal we wanted to go to. Eventually he got the idea that we weren’t going to the airport, and decided to quadruple our fare because of it.

Eventually we arrived at our correct hotel, saw Taylor and Jac, checked in, and went to stay at our friends’ amazing Tower Suite back at the super nice hotel. We ate lunch there and hung out at the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

Now seems like a good time to catch you up on the last part of our stay at Lily’s Valley resort. After I posted last, I was offered a motorcycle ride, met some wild expats, and tried to sleep through blasting Tamil music.

The motorcycle ride was offered (but I never had time to cash in on) from Prince, an employee at the resort who I talked to just after I went to the central area to get internet to post onto the blog. He told me about his friends’ arranged marriages, his views on female education (positive), and about getting his MBA while working the night shift at Lily’s Valley.

The next day we went to a friend of Sukumar’s (Mark) in town for Christmas. There, we met a number of interesting people including Mark himself, who Megan talked to at length about their favorite philosophers. We went from Mark’s house to a 60-person Christmas party with a bunch of foreigners in Kodaikanal.

Expats always have great stories—there has to be some reason that they left. This is even more true when they are living in a small city on top of a random mountain in India.

We met one guy who works to make diamond mines more like cooperatives in the Ivory Coast. The host of the party brews his own beer. Another person, Benjy,  was a drama teacher in the US and now teaches at an international school in Kodaikanal. There were a few people who had lived their whole lives in the area, including a guy who is an “opinion-maker” on television, who told us why he doesn’t think India isn’t the best place for gay rights. All these people were really cool to talk to, and there were a number of other folks with interesting things to say.

As the outdoor gathering wore on, someone pulled out a guitar and started playing Simon & Garfunkle and Beatles songs. The guitar was passed around and people played and sang songs they are fond of. Megan and I had a great time listening and singing along, and particularly enjoyed one guy’s song about Kodaikanal that he had written. The food at this gathering  was also terrific, with a number of Indian dishes as well at stuff you’d see at any barbecue in the US like grilled chicken.

As the sun started to set we headed back to Lily’s valley, where we watched the second half (I had seen the first half) of Django—a really good movie. After that, I went to skype my parents for a while, came back, and went to sleep.

On our last day, we woke up late, went out for a drive with Sukumar and his friend who owns the farm. We drove by the huge pine tree forest, drank coconut water, saw an amazing overlook onto a village in a valley, and had lunch. We came back to the hotel, packed up, and headed to our overnight bus to Chennai.

The bus assistant put on a painfully loud Tamil film ripped from tamiltorrents.com. It was painfully loud because of the subwoofers right above our heads. The movie was about a bus assistant falling in love with a girl from a rural area, and had plenty of eardrum wrenching scenes where the bus wheels would screech to a halt. We tried moving back but there were subwoofers back there too.

ALSO, instead of having cuddle-cabins like the last one, there were just seats that leaned back a little. Sleeping in them was a lot worse than the bus we took on the way to the resort. Both were listed as semi-sleepers, but we’re pretty sure the first one was a full-sleeper.  When we got to the bus stop, we found an auto-rickshaw that took a very “interesting” route to the ITC, bringing us back to the beginning of this story.

Now I’m safely at the hotel for the debate world championships, and likely won’t be posting again. I appreciate the vote of confidence expressed by your willingness to read my ramblings, and I hope I’ll get around to writing something for my next trip!