Who gets to be in a Bamboo Tree house anyway?- A journey to South Asia, the Jungle Chapter

[Stopping for a bathroom break on our road trip to the jungle.]

[Grace, in all her beauty]

Roger had told us on the first day our 3 options for our little mid-trip jungle escapade. Our choices were: (1) Cottage, (2) Mud Hut, and (3) Bamboo Tree House. So of course we all agreed that the BAMBOO TREE HOUSE would be the best possible option. I mean really, who gets to ever stay in a bamboo tree house overnight ever. That’s right, no one, except us.

(Please forgive my smack-talk. Really, it’s just my way of saying, “Holy Cow!!! I’m so excited to stay in a treehouse!!!)

We left early for the jungle-mountains. Brent and I sat in the back with Roger’s bird books, coffee and mango saplings, and everyones book bags. We stopped at a really cool place to eat breakfast. Most of us ordered Puris, which we started calling poof poofs. (Roger misunderstood, and though we were calling them poo poos)We stopped in Mysore, and it was super cool. We got to tour an old Maharaja’s Palace.

[Puri's/Poof Poofs]

[Carlie and I waiting for our table at breakfast]

[Brock, Rebecca and Grace waiting for a table at breakfast too.]

[Indian Doughnuts...spicy]

Paul Billy dropped us off in front of the palace and drove off to go find us some pizza, and immediately we were surrounded by Indian salesmen selling all sorts of trinkets. They were selling all sorts of overpriced tourist goods, and seemed so excited to find Americans. One man sold post cards, one sold silver anklets, another sandlewood fans, and another wooden flutes. This is hilarious: as soon as we stepped out of the car, the flute man immediately switched from his Indian tunes to Celine Dion’s, “My Heart Will Go On”. So we walked through the first courtyard to the first metal detector all the while being serenaded with the Titanic theme song…. (I’ll never let go Jack, I’ll never let go.)

My Heart Will Go On from on Vimeo.

I swear I don’t know these people. I just found this video on a search for the song. Notice the guy in the school library… so funny.

I waltzed right through the first metal detector, but when I looked back it seemed like Brent was having some issues. He had his nice pocket knife with him, and was forced to go find a hiding spot for it back in the salesmen courtyard. He found a nice spot by some bushes, but just when he thought his knife would be safe, he made eye-contact with the postcard salesman. We thought for sure someone would take it while we were inside.

[Mysore Palace]

We walked on through the massive palace courtyard and checked our shoes into the shoe keeper. (The whole “shoe-checking-in” process reminded me of a roller rink, only we didn’t get roller skates in exchange for our shoes). We proceeded to the entrance of the palace, but an upset security guard who didn’t speak English got mad at us for having our cameras. Apparently we hadn’t read the sign: “No Photography inside the Palace”. So we turned around and walked across the massive palace court yard barefoot. We took some silly pictures by the panther statues. Some men stopped Brent to take a picture with him (… maybe cause he’s tall?), and then we walked on to go check our camera’s into a locker. As sketchy as it seemed we handed our 3 camera’s over to the locker keeper, and finally got to go inside the palace.

[Being silly in front of the Panther Statue]

[Hindu Temple next to the Palace]

It was incredible-- way more impressive then the palace in Aladdin. The entire palace had beautiful tile floors and detailed artwork everywhere: floors, walls, ceiling, windows, chandeliers. If I had a camera in there, I would have taken 200 pictures. The most impressive room was the marriage room. The marriage room has a 50 foot ceiling with massive decorated green cast iron pillars and a massive circle of stained glass with vibrantly colored glass peacock encircling the ceiling. It filled the room with colorful warm light. There were paintings of Indian history on every wall, and Giant Ivory Tusks framed portraits of the old Maharajas.

After our slow pace through the palace, we went back to get shoes, and got over charged to get them back. (Who does he think he’s messing with anyway?)…

We got our camera’s back, and walked back out through the salesman, and to Roger who met us with two fresh cheese pizzas. We all were delighted to see that no one had stolen Brent’s knife, and in fact the postcard salesman had been watching over it. So we thanked him and bought some Mysore Palace postcards from him at the full price of 50 rupees (close to $1).

We drove through a Tiger reserve and into the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu to get to the tree house. We scoured the brush just waiting to catch the eyes of a panther, a tiger, a leopard or a wild elephant. We all suddenly felt like we were in Jurassic Park. Grace did find a Crested Hawk Eagle. We found a few wild Peacocks, and Roger taught us the Peacock mating call, which was hilarious (eye-oh, eye- oh). We saw some wild bison, deer, and two different kinds of monkeys.

[Eye- oh, Eye-oh!]

[The Tiger we wish we saw]

Finally after 6 hours of driving we arrived at tree house. Oh! It was so cool! It was built about 40 feet up into a mature bamboo cluster. It was made with just two bedrooms, one that us girls claimed, and the boys got the other one. There was a creek running right next to it, so we walked down to go feel the water and get a good look at it.

[The View from the Balcony]

[The Creek next to the Tree house]

Roger’s then took us to his farm, and we met Roger’s farm aide family. We unloaded the mango and coffee saplings, and then went to go see a tamed Elephant feeding. The elephants ate huge balls of mucky stuff. There was a male elephant walked away and peed... We thought it was a girl elephant, but then BAM it was definitely not a girl. Really really funny. Brent vowed to never own male pets because they are just gross.

[Roger's Farm at sunset. Notice the man on the right, he is the farm's caretaker... he turns out to be a very special man for me.]

We went to a hotel where Roger’s friend Samuel was the cook and made us some delicious chicken and French fries. The god of creepy mccreepiness was on huge posters on two walls, but not so out of the ordinary. After dinner we went driving, looking for Tigers at night shining a flashlight into the brush. I got sleepy, and Rebecca feel asleep.

So we went back to do our “Swiss Family Robinson” thing, and met Betsy the spider right away in our bathroom. Brent killed her, and left one of her long legs on the floor. Rebecca took care of the leg. She’s so brave.

The showers in the tree house were so icy! There was no geezers (water heaters) to be seen anywhere.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever fallen asleep in a tree house, but there are a few things to be aware of. It sways with a good gust of wind, and the bamboo creeks all the time like old wooden door hinges. Not to mention all windows must be tightly secured to keep the monkeys out. I slept really well that night. Carlie and Grace shared the bed, and Rebecca and I laid on mattresses on the floor.

I woke up in the morning a little startled to hear banging on the roof and screeching. I peeked out the unsealed door hinge to see a female monkey just taking a stroll on our front porch. I quickly got dressed to see what was going on…

(A continuation of the next day’s jungle adventures are in the next blog. Please keep reading! And post a comment so I know if anyone is reading this!)