Leeches attack!!!!! Trekking in Southern India

Pictures above:

The Tibetan Refugee Camp (3kms from Khuslnagar)

Svanbelagola: The view from the tallest Buddha in the world and ladies with water on thier heads..they carry anything from water to logs on thier heads..so strong!

Mysore: The beautiful vibrant colours of the paints.

Dubare: Batheing the beautiful elephants.

Hampi...a lady sleeping..people sleep whenever they want to out here, today we saw a truck parked on the side of the mountain and the driver was letrally asleep in front of the truck on the road..so random

Children in Hampi..they loved to be photographed so they can see the digital print.


Okay..so we went trekking. We stayed 3km from the bus station a nice walk through rice paddy fields, jungle and hill tribe villages. We reached our homestay, a lovely house with its own coffee plantation and farm. We went trekking that afternoon 6000 feet up to the highest mountain in the South of India. It was hardcore trekking and i nearly gave up about 5 times but with Tels encouragement and help we both managed it. It was just really scary as it was so high up and sheer cliff edges all around you. Once at the top it was a great feeling, cool air flowing as we were in the clouds and an amazing view of all the surrounding mountains, jungle and coffee plantations.

After this we trekked through the jungle, and guess what..the monsoon came and we had no cover only our tshirts and our bags so we ran for cover under a tree. After 30 minutes of waiting it wasn't letting up we decided we had to keep walking. The leeches were taking over our legs everytime we stopped walking so the only way was to keep going. We had to walk through a stream for about 2kms and it was so slippery, as you can imagine i kept falling in and on my bum, i was so annoyed with the situtation i nearly cried! Muddy, wet, leech infested and my legs ached!! Terry was getting frustrated with me, and we were so frustrated with our guide as he wasn't helping at all, it was all a nightmare!! When the rain stopped we arrived home (of course) and pulled off all our leeches. Isabel had holes in her leg with blood rushing out from them and Tel and I had many on our feet and shoes. They were so nasty..makes me shiver thinking about them now!

Our homestay was lovely, coffee plantations all around us and a lovely veranda to sit and watch the rain when it fell. We had a comfortable stay...apart from the food. Waking up at 7am in the morning to face a curry breakfast is not our idea of fun and we had to do this 3 times in a row. Normally here we skip breakfast just because we cannot face the creamy, Korma like texture for breakfast but it was rude not to eat it here!

We left the homestay for Madiekeri and took the bus to Mysore. We are just waiting for the rain to stop so we can walk to catch our bus to kochi in Kerala. Should be a fun state, lots of festivals and tea plantations. We've just read that the Indian airport workers are on strike..fingers crossed we make it to Mumbai to meet our tour group to discover the north but lets wait and see.....