Ooty continued/at the orphanage

When we went to the botanical gardens, one of the fun parts that we encountered was everyone wanting to take pictures of us. At first it was funny, but after a while it became kind of annoying because so many people were asking us for a picture, it made us feel kind of famous. After our day was over, we went back to our hotel which had an amazing view over the town of Ooty. Our hotel was very cozy, comfortable, and welcoming. Every night we had someone come into our rooms and start a fire for us. It may sound kind of crazy to have a fire to warm up in India, but Ooty is around 2600 meters above sea level so it gets cold at night. The only downside to the hotel was that when we ordered dinner it took almost two hours for it to come each night. The next morning, we woke up and took a train ride to Coonoor which was down the mountain a little bit. The view from the train ride was spectacular, and we got many great shots of all the tea plantations along the sides of the mountain. When we got to Coonoor we got Ravi, our driver, to pick us up and take us to Sim's Park. Sim's Park was a green area that was very jungle like because there were so many trees that were drooping down. From there we went to a tea plantation, and learnt how they make tea. The process is very interesting, because it is so simple because nothing is added. It starts off being dried, then gets crushed up into little pieces, then it goes into sheets of crushed tea leaves, from there it gets put into another drier, and then it gets crushed again, the colour of tea leaves goes from green to brown to black, and takes around 12 hours. After we learnt about the tea plantation we were allowed to run around in the tea fields. The boys went running through the tea fields, and got dirty. After running in the tea we went to a nearby tea shop that got fresh tea from the plantation, we tasted and bought different types of tea. 80% of the tea gets exported to Germany and South Africa. From there we went shopping in a market, suggested by our driver, that was very traditional to Indian standards, and everyone was fairly scared (the students). After, we went shopping in Ooty for a couple of hours, which we all felt safer in because it was more like our North American standards. In Ooty a couple of people called home, and then we went back to our hotel for dinner and to sleep. The next morning we left our hotel to travel back to Coimbatore, and to Black Thunder, a water park. This was fairly hard to do because the bus ride down the mountain made most of us feel nauseous because it was a very bumpy road with many curves to get down. However there was a bright side to going down the mountain, the view from the road was amazing, and we were all looking forward to Black Thunder. Black Thunder was a ton of fun and it was nice to cool off in the hot day. There were not many rides open because it was the off season, but the wave pool and this one ride that was in the shape of a U was open, and those were fun to go on. Another fun ride that the boys spent a lot of time on was the "lazy river". This ride was just still water that you pushed yourself along on a tube. They spent a lot of time there because they were pushing each other off the tubes and it was nice to stay in the water. After two hours of fun we were back on the road again barelling towards Coimbatore, Podanur more specifically, at a blazing speed of 20km/h on average. The rest of the ride was around 2 hours. In total, the length of the journey home (back to Coimbatore) was 90km and it took us 4 hours. The next day we woke up and worked at the orphanage. We played with the kids until around 10:30am which was when we started handing out the donations. All of the children were very greatful to recieve the gifts. We gave donations to every section, from the babies to special care. Everyone that was present seemed so happy that we were giving them gifts, and for that we have to thank everyone, back home who donated gifts for the children. One of the things that we were not used to after getting back from Ooty was the heat. We were all exhausted by lunch, and when it was over we took a two hour break where we all slept because we were so tired. After our nap (which ended at 4pm) we worked at the orphanage again. Most of us went to the toddlers section to play with them because the room was cooler. However, Abrar and Jon fought through the heat and went to play soccer with the older boys. They played for a while and then the head of the older boys house told Jon that he had to clean up a cut on his knee. After that they went back to playing soccer again. They played all the way until dinner which was at 7:30pm that night, and the only reason why they stopped was because it was dark out. One of the amazing things about Podanur, effectively a suburb of Coimbatore, is the street vendors and how they always have mounds of watermelon and cawliflower outside on the streets. Another great thing to see is when there is someone on a motorcycle with a mound of cawliflower bigger than the driver, racing down the street. The town itself is a very happy town where everyone is very kind grateful.