Nandi Hills was a mixture of things that I got to know, and things that I still don’t know….

While we were in the orchard area, I saw (or rather, noticed) for the first time, what a Lichi tree looked like:

And the flowers looked so beautiful, too (at least, I think these are the flowers from the same tree…if not, someone let me know!)….

And I loved the patterns the lichen made on the bark, and thought, somehow, of ; I thought of her at various points throughout the day, she would have enjoyed everything so much, the way she experiences everything intensely through all her senses..... On the way, I was stunned by the beauty of this single wildflower (as usual, I do not know its id...) My eye was caught by this "flag" fluttering on the slopes. Was it just a piece of plastic? Or was it really a prayer streamer? I didn't know... One of the things I learnt was, why a CARPENTER BEE is so called. Here are the holes they have bored into the trunk of a dead tree...I call it the "therefore" ,or the "because" photograph! And here's a carpenter bee itself, that Uma took on the 20D: Here's a plant that was growing near the restaurant where we had lunch. Karen identified it as the ELDERBERRY and said flutes are made in America from the wood. I knew about elderberry wine, but this was news to me! So, when I saw this seller of flutes, catapults and (alas!) peacock feathers, I thought of the elderberry plant... I wonder what wood the catapults and flutes are made of? The same answer...IDK!! While we were there, I loved this vista of the leaves, one of the few where the leaves were turning colour like in the American fall: The light through the leaves produced so many shades of green: And these splashes of colour that the POINSETTIA provided: What WAS that white flower that filled the slopes? ISDK, but it was so beautiful with the back light.... Then there were the beloved Nandi Hill landmarks. The old pavilion looks like a picture-postcard setting, near the nursery: And the tank near the orchard, with its lovely old steps, sinking with age, smiling in the wintry sunshine: The almost unrecognizably-weathered Nandi at the Yoga Nandishwara temple atop the hill.... The Bhoga Nandishwara temple, the twin of the Yoga Nandishwara, that nestles in the village at the bottom of the hill, with its little pond and gopura... And on the way home, the mellowed-with-age gate on the ramparts of the fort.... </lj-cut> And of course, how could I not think of when I saw this closing scene for my camera? ,