We are currently staying at Casa deep wood Massingudi south of Mysore in what’s know as the jungle region not really a jungle as in my books but maybe what dartmoor looks like in one of those once in twenty year heatwave.

Yesterday we dove from Nilbursm into the start of the hills, In India the Nilgiris hills rise almost vertically from the plains nearer the coast. They rise almost vertically and make for interesting riding and glorious views.

The ride went with very little problems about 50 miles and pleny ts of time to stop for lunch. We even managed morning and after tea stops

Today Tuesday we went for a ride out, we were a little delayed as Liam was making friends, very good friends with the Masseur Charles, let say Charles rubbed places on Liam last seen by his mother, all in the name of a good full body massage,

We left the retreat at about 1045 and rode through Two tiger reserves led by Juz a really talented Tour Guide and wild life photographer.

Today we saw about a dozen Eelphants including a very young calf and one being scrubbed in the local river, there was obvious trust and contentment between the handler and the elephant who at times was almost completely under the water with just it trunk out of the water, we were watching for a good half hour and although they had started washing when we first saw them was still washing when we left and that’s with what looked like the handler and his son scrubbing away continually. It looked as if the Elephant was in seventh heaven

One of the big problems for me in here is the poor internet speed I would suggest that there is probably better 3 &4 g coverage here that back home is Somerset, no matter where you are there is someone on a mobile phone, yet the speeds are really slow, even in the hotels it’s painful to load a photograph load one line at a time my ancient printer works faster how ever Sam has been able to get some of her excellent photos up on the blog

It now morning and I have been for my 30 minute walk, in the city your deafended by the car and lorry horns, here it’s the birds and monkeys. During the night we had a major rain storm, I went to bed with clear sky’s illuminated by thousands of stars yet It rained and rained for about one hour, it’s stopped now and the whole place has suddenly been made even more green if that’s possible

Today is a long ride through Ooty and beyond its 7:42 and  time to wake the boys and girls for another day