Chamundi Hill

     The Chamundi Hills are close to the palace city of Mysore where we are staying. The hills' average elevation is 1,000 meters. Yesterday we visited Chamuni Hill after seeing two amazing NGOs. One worked with children who are deaf and the other worked with people with mental disabilities. According to legend (Wikipedia), the demon Mahishasura, king of the area that is currently Mysore, was killed by the Goddess Chamundeswari (also Chamundi) after a fierce battle. The hills are named after the goddess, and a temple honors her in the hills. Chamundi's main hill features a long stone stairway, in which we climbed, that leads to the top of the hill. There are 1,180 steps in all, with the first 600 steps being steeper than those higher up. En route to the top, the steps pass the large statue of Nandi the bull. I am pictured with the bull above.The statue is about 16 feet high and 25 feet in length. Nandi is the vahana (vehicle) of Lord Shiva.

Mysore!

Hey Guys,
     So the rainforest retreat at the organic coffee and tea farm was amazing. I touched upon it a bit in my previous post but it definetly is worth mentioning again. I was with five other people in this really cool cabin in the western gats. Weeventually had to leave our paradise and face the reality that we are in school, so off we went to Mysore. Mysore has been great so far. We have had a few opportunities to go into town but most of our time is spent where we sleep and learn, at the Organization for the Development of People. It is a christain commune almost that is housing us and has another building where we take our classes. Professors come in to teach us our classes. For the first part of this semester while we are in Mysore I am taking Hindi, Indian culture and civilization, World Issues, Economics, and Natural Chemicals (a science course I am taking simply because my prof is teaching it). The days are very long and restrictive. A majority of the group has also decided to pay for a yoga instructor to come teach us in the morning which has been very cool, but just makes me fall into bed after dinner. I believe we still have another two weeks here. Everything is still going well. So much to say in so little time. I will hopefully be able to continue posting about how my trip is gong and share more stories with all when I return.

 Thanks for Reading

 P.S. I posted 3 pictures below. The first is at a fort in Kanyukamari, the second was taken in Turtle Bay while pushing our boat into the water to go see dolphins, and the last picture is our ridiculously long hike at the Rainforest Retreat.

A few more pictures!