ANANDAPURA TEMPLE-It is situated on a deserted hill top in kasargod district of kerala, india. The entire rock-built temple is in the middle of a pond.The idol here is special-khadasharkhara it is called. It is made of various medicinal herbs by skilled artisans and the thantri told me that to the touch it feels like a human body!The other amazing thing about this is a crocodile.when they asked for 20 ruppes to feed the crocodile i didn't believe it first;i thought it a trick to extract money. But it was there, an old one whose photo my husband managed to take, daringly climbing down the broken steps by the side of the pond. It had a heap of white rice by it.

ooty in rains

If you love neat dresses and spotless shoes you shouldn't go to ootakhamund (situated high on the Neelgiris, Tamilnadu, India) during the rainy season( the Indian winter of nov,dec months).Because ,at this time this Queen of Hillstations lies under a uniform blanket of mud, chocolate in color and texture. From the one horse town of Gudalur you climb a steady 50 km to reach ooty.But if you side step the rains, man, ooty is so beautiful. Roads are tunnels of trees, every tree bows down due to the profusion of flowers. I particularly liked the violet dhalias(?) that grew every where and had my husband Sha ji bring a branch for me.Then there were some yellow flowers so strong scented that you almost felt giddy passing under them. But best of all were the tall eucaliptus trees that stood as tall sentinals oa both sides of the road. They are so amazing that you feel that you have stepped right in to the heart of a forest around a bend in the road!And their smell is the smell of ooty. BUT I have lots more on ooty during the (correct- read tourist) season too. i can tell you roads, where to shop and take photos too. But all that in my second post. Bye for now!