Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Food In India

We enjoyed Indian food.  The presentations were interesting and creative.

At Henry Martyn Institute hostel, we served ourselves from a buffet and then needed to wash our own dishes.


Our guide and his wife in Hydrabad, Abbas, was celebrating their anniversary and invited our group to their house for dinner.






The dessert was vanilla pudding with an apricot sauce on top.










Here are pictures of the variety of food we enjoyed.






One meal was served on a banana leaf.









The best peas we have ever eaten!!










Some meals were served on a tray.  This is know as Thali.









One of the joys was having coffee served at 7:30 am in our room, actually our tent.



Food was plentiful.






Monday, February 20, 2012

People of India

People were asking to have their picture taken and were amazed at seeing it right away.


 

 Classical Indian dancing at a cultural show.









Water transportation




















Where we stayed in India


 We experienced a variety of lodging facilities while traveling in India.  Lodging ranged from a hostel to five star Hotels.

The first 3 nights we were in Hyderabad at the Henry Martyn Institute.  This was the hostel.





























Ideal Beach Resort near Chennai was our next location for 2 nights.




One of our most interesting lodging was the overnight train to Tanjore.  Ruthann is waking up from her private chamber.


















The porters carried our bags for us.








The Bangula at Karaikudi was once a palace.  This hotel was a 5 star facility which had been described in an article in the New York Times.


In Madurai, we stayed at the Heritage which was a former country club.  As we approached our room, the person taking us to the room said, "I hope it's big enough for you".  It was!





This was the living room with computer table.














The bedroom was behind the living room.











Outside our bedroom was a plunge pool which was 18 inches deep.  We needed to walk past the pool to get to the bathroom.












This is looking back to our bedroom.







At Kodikanal, we stayed in the Carlton Hotel.

In the mountains, we stayed in Spice Village.  While looking rustic from the outside, the room was very comfortable.


At Kerala, we stayed on an island at Phikipkutty Farm.

Chadelao Garh was a converted farm to a tourist hotel.  Our room had been a former horse stable.



























Chhatra Sagar was the most unique lodging experience.  It was situated on the top of a dam.




The rooms were individual tents.  This is the front porch.













The inside of the tent is complete with private marbled bath behind the bedroom.






We enjoyed the variety of lodging options.  Of course, we had our favorites.  Guess which one(s).














Thursday, February 16, 2012

Flowers In India


Flowers were abundant in India. 


  
























































 














There were arrangements of flowers at most of our places of lodging.  Some were in the room and some at the door.


 
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