I thought a simple two-day trip won’t cause any ripples and I can come back and gently slide into the routine…but no, that’s the never the way things happen, do they!

First of all, a fall right in the middle of the market square at Valparai (vAl pArai= rock that is shaped like a tail..don’t ask me why this name, I never saw any tail-shaped rock) town, great entertainment for all Valparai-dwellers, but not so good on someone’s hips and elbow….

Second, various minor must-be-done-NOW kind of situations arising as soon as I got home…

Oh well, life is sort of back on its usual course (I still have a lot of catching up to do, but that will happen….)

Here are two images from the Valparai trip that I really liked:

These are sacred stones, possibly symbolic of deities, that we found on the hillside as we passed. Remember, this shot was taken from a rapidly moving car, so mutters of “shake, shake”, won’t be entertained. I loved the colours…

We were amazed that there were tea plantations in the middle of the forest; when we met , he explained. It is the other way around. The land was bought long ago for tea plantations, but still retain fragments of forest; luckily, these fragments are where the endangered LION-TAILED MACAQUE lives, so the company that owns this land is not allowed to deforest it and make more tea plantations.

But in the tea plantations, the workers toil through the day, collecting the leaves….and at the end of day, here they, wending their way back home:

More later, a delightful young one has come to visit and I must go and see her… she is Fame, herself (that’s her name in Sanskrit) and off I go…