India part 3 - In which we get language lessons and meet new friends

Hi again, sorry this has taken so long but his nibs says there's been no why phi. Now you may also ask, "Why phi?" and indeed I did, but he says it's wifi and without it we can't connect to the internet. So anyway here we were in Cochin and we had wifi at last so we tried to stay in touch, but failed and now we're home and he has no excuse.

After staying in our lovely cabin for fewer days than we all would have wanted we moved on again to  a place called Wayanad.  It's up in them that hills. The place itself was called Tranquil, and it was really lovely.  We got to chill out a bit - well in so far as you can when it's 35C or more.

On our only full day there we went for a long walk - well, before he says it - the staff walked and we rode in splendour. We walked through the coffee plantation and we could see far far away across the fantastic hills of Kerala.

At  one point we had a lovely viewpoint with picker knicker tables, so Zeke and I sat down and waited for our food.  But there wasn't any!!!!! The staff said that we had huge breakfast of dosas and scrumptious masala sauce, with freshly squeezed pineapple juice and lovely coffee, so we didn't need a picker knicker, and we had to admit that multiple meals with multiple courses meant we really didn't need any snackerals, but still, being bears....

All too soon we were on our way to a wonderful place called Arthur pally, or how do you say it Alan? It's, "Athirapilly" Jock.  Oh, Athththth rapilly. No,  let's do it slowly because I know it's hard for a small bear.  Ready now? 
"Ath" 
Ath,
 "Ir,"
Ir
" A Pilly"
A Pilly.
Now run it all together and you get, "Athirapilly"
Athira-pilly, Athirapilly, Athirapilly. It's not really that hard, but I do spray a bit when I say it.  Not really, well done.
Athirapilly is famous for its waterfalls and in the picture above we're sitting on our hotel balcony with  the falls in the background.

We had a tosplore and we found another nephalent to be friends with. It had a funny head, but it was just right for both of us to sit on.  Little did we know that riding a real nephalent would be much more tociting, but you''l just have to watch this space.

Next morning we went for a walk and hey presto we were down at the bottom of the falls, so it was time for official beside the waterfall portraits.

 Zeke was a wee bit concerned that he'd be washed away by all that water.

So I put my (slightly atremble) arm around his shoulders and we both felt much safer. That's what friends are for.

Finally he jumped into Alan's bag and I got to be a brave bear an had my own photo taken. You can see that there were THREE waterfalls and we were rather near the one on the left!

Well, that was the end of our tocitement, but there had been some earlier, 'cos on our way out we met some new friends! 

We could see over breakfast that something was trying to get at the jackfruit in a tree that we could see from our table.  There was much shaking of the huge fruits, but none came down, and we wondered what was doing it. Would it be a bird, or a nephalent?                                      When we went out all we could see was lots of legs and two tails. So Zeke said, "Gee what's that Jock?" and I said, 'Coo-flip looks like a two headed two tailed monster thingy rumbling round in a fury blanket."

Well, Alan and Ann just laughed at that and Ann said, "They're not a monster boys they are Malabar Giant Squirrels."  They're just have a bit of fun.  Now I've seen squirrels, but these were HUGE. They are about twice the body length of a european squirrel and that tail can be nearly two feet long!

Aren't they lovely, and much bigger than ickle bears like us.

Well, that's enough tocitement for this time.  In our next instalment you'll get to see us riding on a real nephalent!  Stay tuned.

Hugs,

Jock and Zeke