The Train, Telugu Tour Guide, Tree admiring, Tribal dancing, Tall feeling, Museum going, Cave Temple, Tea Time, Puppy Saving, Crazy Bus Driving Adventure!!!

So this week we got to go on a fun excursion up north from where we are.  We got up early to be ready to leave for the train station at 5 am.  Two of our translators took us, thankfully, because the train station…. Kinda scary! The train ride was one of my favorite parts of the day.  I sat next to the window and it was just so amazing to watch the landscape change and see the different areas that the train ran through for 4 ½ hours.  

After we got off of the train we hopped onto a big tour bus that took us to a bunch of places throughout the day.  The first little stop on the bus was for our tour guide to point out some trees for everyone to see.  He was talking about them for quite a while and so I asked one of the translators what he was saying and he told us they were the trees that are used for making matches and toothpicks, “ooooohh” “aaaaaahh” what a life changing moment.  Mom, I have seen in real life THE trees that are used for matches and toothpicks, yep, pretty dang cool! haha  At the next real stop we went to a garden (I honestly have no idea what its importance was because the tour guide spoke excellent Telugu) but it was a beautiful garden!  Then we went to a museum that was filled with super creepy mannequins.  It was actually a funny experience because one of the main parts of the museum wasn't lit so we walked through the building with enough light to see where to walk but not enough lighting to see the actual displays! We were hurried through our museum tour and got back on the bus which took us to a hotel for lunch.  The food was spicy! but actually pretty good!  I was happy because they actually had spoons!!! (for those who wanted them) So I got to use a spoon which made me happy! 

After lunch we got to watch a tribal dance.  I guess there is some jungle tribe close to where we were so a bunch of lady’s came and did a tribal dance for us, and after we got to dance with them!  I also snuck a quick picture next to them to show you all how dang tall I am! I’ve found a place in this world where I am tall, so I’m enjoying it while I can!  

After that lil adventure, we got back on the crazy bus for a long ride over to the Borra Caves.  

This was the coolest part of the day the caves were amazing and huge!  We got to go down (and later climb up) a bazillion stairs to get into this huge cave and walk around, it was super fun!  We were told that we would be seeing a temple on this trip and then when we were in the cave our translators told us the temple was actually in the cave. Cool!  So we climbed up these super ancient-looking, scary, unreliable stairs (major Indiana Jones moment) to get to this “temple”.  The temple turned out to be this small little cove with a bell hanging down that people could ring if they wanted.  It was just really funny to go through all this fear in climbing those stairs just to find that the temple was really just a bell and nothing more haha and then turn around and go right back down.  After walking around in the cave we had to get back to the bus that was going to drive us all back home.  Okay I have to tell you about this bus driver of ours… the guy was a mad man! He was the craziest bus driver ever and I LOVED it!!! Seriously the guy drove the bus like he was in a Nascar race!  As soon as we were headed for home he drove so fast I think he was faster than the train!  The difficult part was trying not to get car sick.  On our way back we stopped for “tea time” and as soon as we got off the bus one poor girl ran to the side of the street to relieve her stomach, so the drive was a bit rough.  We found six puppies at the place we stopped at for our tea break, my heart absolutely broke for those poor puppies!  I have no idea how they were alive, one looked inches from death L it was so so sad, but luckily McKenna and I had brought some crackers for the trip (in case the food wasn’t safe to eat) and we fed all the puppies my crackers.  So we felt happy that we were able to give them some sort of food, they were absolutely adorable!  The place we stopped at for tea happily served some sort of snack along with it, I have no idea what it was but it was surprisingly really good!  After that the bus took us back home.  It was a super fun packed day, and we even saw monkeys during the bus ride! So that was pretty cool!