Pondicherry to Kodaikanal

Wednesday, May 4, 08
A choir of birds sends me out the door. What a harmony. I have found that the birds which have been singing the loudest are mynah birds.
Milan and driver, we have hired a taxi, pick me up at 7:00, and we are off. Well, first comes gas and a few other details. Off is really 7:20.
Stopping for breakfast in Villappurum, we have a dosai and itly. The first is a pancake with onion and curry. The second is a circular pressed rice patty. These are accompanied by coconut, corriander, sambar, and something else. I would tell you what sambar is, but I don't know!
The going is slow. There is continual road work for 250 km. Trichy, who's real name is Tiruchchirappalli, see why it's called Tricky, on to Dindigul, and a start into the Western Ghats (hills). Driving through hill market towns, we arrive, 5:00, in Kodaikanal.
This hill town is a bustling, noisy vacation spot, cool, having rained earlier, and gives me the feeling of Tanah Rata in the Malaysian Cameron Highlands - On the way we have passed tea plantations.
Our reservation, we booked since rooms are at a premium, is at the Snooze Inn. Glimpses of British architecture is everywhere in the lake area. Kodaikanal International School, which my cousins attended in the early 50s, so long ago, faces the lake and is a grand series of stone and rock buildings. I'll make a visit into that site in the next few days. Kodaikanal, or Kodai, Lake is a finger lake which shimmers in the drizzling rain as Milan and I drink chai at the Kodai Boat Club. Two elderly locals are rowed across the lake, it's too long a walk, as the oars dip into the mist. Walking around the lake edge and up to have dinner, soup and vegetable curry/rice, the air has cooled to such a degree that we need jackets. What a contrast to Pondy!