Chingara (Honey Valley) trip..

We had decided long time back that we were going for a holiday but we had not planned it properly so it was the last minute trying to get reservations and it was the first week of May and all the places were booked but our perseverance paid off and we finally managed to get a booking in the Chingara homestay at coorg. The only thing which troubled me was that we could go only to one place in our vehicle and from there we had to go in their jeep and it was totally in the forest. I was not sure what to expect. We started on 1st of May and went to Mysore and visited the Mysore Zoo and the Chamundi Hills. Children enjoyed the zoo and we had a few discussions on why do we keep animals in cages and how would we feel if we were kept in captivity. We enjoyed watching one Giraffe which was in a totally meditative mood. The next day we started around 8am towards Chingara.
We travelled via Virajpet the roads were nice ..though in some places the roads were not great but the journey was comfortable and after four hours of travel we reached the Kabinakad junction where we had to park the car and wait for the jeep. We were promptly received by a smiling, pleasant Padmanabhan who took us in the jeep uphill to Chingara. It was a bumpy ride but seeing the forest around us was very exciting. Children were jumping with joy as they found it very thrilling.
Chingara is awesome surrounded by the coffee plantation and trees a really wonderful retreat.
Sharad the proprietor received us and showed us our room which was neat, clean and with basic facilities. There is no electricity there only generator so power has to be used judiciously. As soon as we reached it started raining and watching the rain falling all around us on the trees was such a beautiful sight.
The children were a little jumpy as the place is rich with bugs and insects of all types and sizes.When the rain lessened up after lunch we trekked up to the honey valley homestay.. it was an interesting walk. Varsha managed to get a leech into her shoe.
After coming back to the room we again had some leech encounters, saw lot of different kinds of beetles and spiders ..the children were a little scared but excited at the same time. It was fun. We would love to go back there again..it was such a wonderful experience ..was a home away from home.

Bottle Numbered 1

Varun while eating his lunch the other day suddenly said,'Ma our body is like the coca-cola bottle which has number 1 written under it(these bottles are not for use like other plastic bottles which can be used again and again)... use and throw, once we die the soul leaves the body and that is the end of the body just like the bottle once we drink the coke we have to throw the bottle and cannot use it again.'
It really surprised me to hear him talk like that and i wanted to understand where did this thinking come from and i asked him. His answer was very simple," I was thinking about the book 'The Deathly Hallows' in which Harry Potter looks at the shell of Voldemort and then it suddenly came to me that our body is just a shell and it can be used only once."
I was amazed that a ten year old could analyse, connect things and put it across in such a simple way.