Madikeri and the Coorg

Post Goa we've climbed 1300m up into the mountains in the south of Karnataka to cool off and await the monsoon, umbrellas and poncho at the ready.
This is the most beautiful place - described in the guide we picked up as 'the Scotland of India' - there are rolling hills, coffee plantations with tall tall trees, waterfalls, wild elephants and a mini Tibet - just like Scotland ;o)

View from the park in Madikeri - complete with musical fountain (son, lumiere and eau!) every evening..

It's cool enough for picnics and walks here... so we trekked the 8km back from the waterfalls one day..


and wandered for hours in the Tibetan settlement yesterday, which was quite surreal and like being in another country - the landscape is so different (no plantations, just ploughed fields and prayer flags flapping in the breeze), monks fly past on Enfield motorbikes, robes flapping and the golden tips of temples are visible from miles away.
Arriving at the Golden Temple we stumbled into a courtyard of dancing men, slow, mournful dancing, wearing such colourful costumes and surrounded by an audience of hundreds of monks - many questions clarified it as a 10 day festival to chase evil spirits... beautiful and mesmerising scenes.

We managed to wander a little further to the temple itself - ornate, sparkling gold, colours, patterns and so different again from the Hindu temples. Such silks and paintings and light.. a feast!!!!

A reminder that the Tibetan settlement here dates from the 1960s, 10 years or more after the Chinese entered Tibet... many posters and reminders of the struggles for freedom and subsequent disappearances and imprisonments flutter alongside the prayer flags.

We're off tomorrow to work on a project here in the Coorg http://www.childrensproject.org/. More news when we reach Pondicherry again in a couple of weeks!