November 12, 2010
I woke up at five this morning to to get to the airport on time.
First was a taxi from Pune to Bombay, a flight from Bombay to Chennai, a flight from Chennai to Coimbatore, then a taxi from Coimbatore to Ooty.
Only in India would you find a butterfly in one of the airport buses. It had found a seat on the windowsill right next to me. Amazing.
I reached Ooty late in the evening, very ready to call it a day.
November 13, 2010
We took a tour around some of the Nilgiri Mountains today!! The mountains are bright green, tea gardens expand through the mountainside. The slopes are steep, the roads narrow. Springs and waterfalls form small streams throughout it all.
To start out the journey, I was shocked to find a truck being held on the road by a rope. I have no idea how they managed this one
Unfortunately my camera died, at the very beginning of the journey, these were the last pictures I was able to take. Our first stop honestly reminded me of the rock on Lion King. But in place of the rock was a tree. A huge old tree. At this particular site, there weren't many trees around. The tree overlooked hundreds of acres of tea gardens. As we walked around the tree, there was a small shrine. I thought it was cute until I saw blood everywhere and a chicken head stabbed through a Triton like staff. Apparently the locals had just performed a chicken sacrifice.
Our next stop on the road was at a prestigious English boarding school. It was the first building that I have been in, in India, that the floor boards were wooden! It is very uncommon to see, but could have only been an influence of the English. Organic matter decomposes so quickly in India from the rains, I would be surprised if the wooden framed school hadn't needed a lot of repair work.
The director invited us in, and served us milk (black) tea with school made biscuits.
I was traveling with Vanya (the wonderful lady I am staying with, who I met through Ameli, and is the director of a number of sustainable projects in the Nilgiris for Earth Trust), and the assistant director Sivakumar, Ameli (who also traveled to the Nilgiris to help out with a few of the projects), and an ecological expert of the region Godwin Bosco.
The goal of the visit was to see if the school would be interested in working with Earth Trust in creating some eco-projects,classes or clubs for the kids. Earth Trust's proposal involved reinvigorating the natural ecology of the Nilgiri Mountains. When the English colonized India, they brought with them the Eucalyptus tree, which is a great tree for wood and medicines-particularly in England, but in India it has been causing some havoc for the native species. The trees secrete some kind of chemical which makes it difficult for other plant life to thrive, the birds avoid them, and their roots grow so deep they empty water reserves faster than they can be replenished.
Earth Trust is working on restoring the Nilgiris original landscape of grasslands and sholas (patches of stunted evergreen forest).
The school director definitely had a bit of a shocked reaction when he found out that the primary goal was to harvest all of their eucalyptus trees (the trees are huge, beautiful and everywhere). But for the sake of ecology and the animals that survive off of the sholas and the grasslands, alternative projects need to be considered.
Stop number 3: An organic tea factory! As soon as you entered the building, it was like being a giant tea cup with out the tea. It was hot, humid and smelled of tea! Maybe that could be a new thing, saunas with tea steam.
Before entering we had to put our feet in a machine that spit out baggies on our shoes. It was fun, haha I could have done that all day.
These particular tea gardens that surrounded the factory were the highest tea gardens in the world, and the coldest! It gets down to -7 degrees F, one of the few places in southern India which develops frost in the winter!
The factory is also fair-trade. But because the place is so remote, there is no cell phone service or internet. This alone, makes it difficult to maintain an adequate supply of workers. The workers also have to travel quite a long distance to get to the site.
But for some, its a relief to be far away, tucked into the remote beautiful landscape.
Pit stop number 4: We drove to some other remote areas. The Earth Trust team were looking for the perfect location to start an eco university. Specifically Godwin's project. The University would teach how to tune yourself into your environment and understand its needs, and how to work with it rather than against it.
The last pit stop of the day was an Organic farm. They were growing fish, tomatoes, and many other crops inside greenhouses. They were using organic fertilizers and pesticides. But it's good to know your farmer! Because sometimes organic pesticides and fertilizers can cause similar damage to the crops and other organisms as synthetic ones. It's all about how you use them.
The tour took all day, and by the time we turned around to go home, it was night already. As we turned on one of the steep roads, a leopard runs right in front of our car!! My first sighting of a cat!! It went by too quick for any kind of pictures! We also spotted Sambar (a huge Indian deer) , and hares!
These roads are windy and steep. And when one car or truck breaks down, it holds up all the rest of the traffic on the road. On our way home a truck broke down. All the men in our car got out to help push start this truck, it was quite a site to see more than 20 men helping each other to get this truck working again.
I woke up at five this morning to to get to the airport on time.
First was a taxi from Pune to Bombay, a flight from Bombay to Chennai, a flight from Chennai to Coimbatore, then a taxi from Coimbatore to Ooty.
Only in India would you find a butterfly in one of the airport buses. It had found a seat on the windowsill right next to me. Amazing.
I reached Ooty late in the evening, very ready to call it a day.
November 13, 2010
We took a tour around some of the Nilgiri Mountains today!! The mountains are bright green, tea gardens expand through the mountainside. The slopes are steep, the roads narrow. Springs and waterfalls form small streams throughout it all.
To start out the journey, I was shocked to find a truck being held on the road by a rope. I have no idea how they managed this one
Unfortunately my camera died, at the very beginning of the journey, these were the last pictures I was able to take. Our first stop honestly reminded me of the rock on Lion King. But in place of the rock was a tree. A huge old tree. At this particular site, there weren't many trees around. The tree overlooked hundreds of acres of tea gardens. As we walked around the tree, there was a small shrine. I thought it was cute until I saw blood everywhere and a chicken head stabbed through a Triton like staff. Apparently the locals had just performed a chicken sacrifice.
Our next stop on the road was at a prestigious English boarding school. It was the first building that I have been in, in India, that the floor boards were wooden! It is very uncommon to see, but could have only been an influence of the English. Organic matter decomposes so quickly in India from the rains, I would be surprised if the wooden framed school hadn't needed a lot of repair work.
The director invited us in, and served us milk (black) tea with school made biscuits.
I was traveling with Vanya (the wonderful lady I am staying with, who I met through Ameli, and is the director of a number of sustainable projects in the Nilgiris for Earth Trust), and the assistant director Sivakumar, Ameli (who also traveled to the Nilgiris to help out with a few of the projects), and an ecological expert of the region Godwin Bosco.
The goal of the visit was to see if the school would be interested in working with Earth Trust in creating some eco-projects,classes or clubs for the kids. Earth Trust's proposal involved reinvigorating the natural ecology of the Nilgiri Mountains. When the English colonized India, they brought with them the Eucalyptus tree, which is a great tree for wood and medicines-particularly in England, but in India it has been causing some havoc for the native species. The trees secrete some kind of chemical which makes it difficult for other plant life to thrive, the birds avoid them, and their roots grow so deep they empty water reserves faster than they can be replenished.
Earth Trust is working on restoring the Nilgiris original landscape of grasslands and sholas (patches of stunted evergreen forest).
The school director definitely had a bit of a shocked reaction when he found out that the primary goal was to harvest all of their eucalyptus trees (the trees are huge, beautiful and everywhere). But for the sake of ecology and the animals that survive off of the sholas and the grasslands, alternative projects need to be considered.
Stop number 3: An organic tea factory! As soon as you entered the building, it was like being a giant tea cup with out the tea. It was hot, humid and smelled of tea! Maybe that could be a new thing, saunas with tea steam.
Before entering we had to put our feet in a machine that spit out baggies on our shoes. It was fun, haha I could have done that all day.
These particular tea gardens that surrounded the factory were the highest tea gardens in the world, and the coldest! It gets down to -7 degrees F, one of the few places in southern India which develops frost in the winter!
The factory is also fair-trade. But because the place is so remote, there is no cell phone service or internet. This alone, makes it difficult to maintain an adequate supply of workers. The workers also have to travel quite a long distance to get to the site.
But for some, its a relief to be far away, tucked into the remote beautiful landscape.
Pit stop number 4: We drove to some other remote areas. The Earth Trust team were looking for the perfect location to start an eco university. Specifically Godwin's project. The University would teach how to tune yourself into your environment and understand its needs, and how to work with it rather than against it.
The last pit stop of the day was an Organic farm. They were growing fish, tomatoes, and many other crops inside greenhouses. They were using organic fertilizers and pesticides. But it's good to know your farmer! Because sometimes organic pesticides and fertilizers can cause similar damage to the crops and other organisms as synthetic ones. It's all about how you use them.
The tour took all day, and by the time we turned around to go home, it was night already. As we turned on one of the steep roads, a leopard runs right in front of our car!! My first sighting of a cat!! It went by too quick for any kind of pictures! We also spotted Sambar (a huge Indian deer) , and hares!
These roads are windy and steep. And when one car or truck breaks down, it holds up all the rest of the traffic on the road. On our way home a truck broke down. All the men in our car got out to help push start this truck, it was quite a site to see more than 20 men helping each other to get this truck working again.
No comments:
Post a Comment