2nd March - Day out in Gudalur

Felt really good this morning and I went for a run up to the temple. It is becoming my normal run. It is about 10km if I run up to the top of the hill 3 times. The views are amazing. It has been great to really see one area in depth. I love it here. I am enjoying traveling so much. I really do not want to have to go back to the UK yet or back to work.

I can't go anywhere on my bike today and I have resigned myself to having to wait in Jungle Paradise until my component arrives. I could have spent the day finishing the paper work stuff I have to do before I leave - but that is sooooo boring! I procrastinated some more...

Johnie was feeling much better today and he felt like a trip to Gudalur to get a number plate for his Royal Enfield (something he had been trying to do for months). We decided to go on his bike for a day trip. It was so much more fun with both of us feeling better and on the bike rather than in the car (as we had yesterday). I would still have preferred to go on my push bike than the motorbike but it was really fun to hold on and go really quickly. Motorbikes really are fun.

The trip takes about 1 hour but we stopped many times for me to take photos and look for wildlife. We did not see any tigers or bears unfortunately. There are 48 tigers in the reserve that we were biking through. They are spotted every couple of days by the tour guides that take guests out from the local resorts. Bears and wild elephants are regularly spotted by Johnie.

When we got to Gudalur we went to get a new number plate for Johnie's motorbike from a tiny shop. It was amazing. The shop had automatic system where the numbers are typed into a computer and then the numbers are printed out on huge sheets. The numbers are then peeled off and stuck on the plate. The whole process took 5 minutes from when Johnie told them the numbers required.

When we have spent the last 2 days trying to get a thread cut on a small piece of metal it felt crazy that this was so easy. Some things in India are really efficient or really easy to get hold of where as others are ridiculously inefficient or really hard to get hold of. Until you actually try to get hold of something is is difficult to determine which category the item will fit into.

I had bought Johnie lunch yesterday and so today he offered to buy me lunch. He found it very funny to take me to "Anithia Mess". The place was delightfully grotty looking - just like the sort of establishment I had been frequenting before staying with Johnie. The food was really great and the service fast - the opposite to the high end restaurants in India - based on our experience. It is becoming an "in" joke that the quality of the food and service in India is inversely proportional to the cost.

We had a fun wander round and headed back about 5. We stopped off in Masinagudi for some shopping and then home for a chilled evening.

I love the sign saying M.K.Dot - com that has no website!