Madikeri (Karnataka), India - December 25th, 2006

Since the sightseeing agenda was ging to be busy today, I just had some coffee, bundled up, and left to visit the Golden Temple, located in the Nandroling Monastery. Some of the kindlest people in earth live here in many Tibetean refugee settlements. The Golden Temple has 3 huge statues inside and the middle one is an 18 meter high golden plated Buddha. There are thousands of monks in this area with their orange, maroon attaries (robes).
Sera village just 2 kms. from there, houses 5,000 monks. They were painting their nice village quarters and homes because on January 8th the Dali Lama is coming to visit. It was very pleasant to see so many monks with their sweet and smiley Chinese faces.
In the afternoon, I went to visit Abby Falls, a nice 7 km. hike from the town centre. There were hundreds of Indian people there, and maybe only 5 or 6 foreigners. The Indian ladies were playing in the water while wearing their saris.
I came home and shared the photos with the family and they really enjoyed it!

Madikeri (Karnataka), India - December 23rd, 2006

I am travelling this morning to Madikeri, the capital of the Kodago region, cooler temperatures than the rest of the region. It's a green and mountaneous area and forested hills, with lots of cardamon and coffee plantations. Kodago was independent until 1956, and now they are trying to restore the independence.
The people of this region are known as Kodavos, descendent of Persians and Kurds. They worship unique deities. Wedding ceremonies include complex dances, chopping off a banana leaf with a sword. Kodago is the only place in India where citizens ar allowed to own guns.
I arrived in town at 1:00pm and there wasn't room available anywhere. Apparently, this is a very big weekend, Christmas holidayss plus many weddings are taking place this weekend, as per their tradition. Luckily, a family of 'home stay' had a room and board outside town in a very nice green and quiet location.
This afternoon I went for a nice walk to town. In the evening many people go to see the sunset at Raja's Seat, the view is extraordinary, and also there are very nice gardens on the top to walk around.