After the night before, I woke up pretty early, at around 5AM. I wanted to be able to get the Y&M in before we had to make moves.

I got that complete, modified of course because of the elbow, and had some green tea. Athai said that Shruthi and Chinny were getting some good sleep.

Our driver arrived, and we were off.

As we left, the sky was fairly blue, and Athai and I continued on our epic conversations.

Though I think I napped at one point JToday we were going to Jog Falls, the second tallest waterfall in India. It is a segmented waterfall, that during the monsoon season (like it is now) can become a plunge waterfall.

I was particularly hungry, so I wanted to make sure that we were eating breakfast before we got there. Our driver took us to a really nice spot, and I had 2 vadai and sambar, upma, and this sweet. And coffee. The sweet was a mistake, it definitely put me over the edge.

So we got back in the car, and Athai and I chatted for a little, before I went to sleep. She and the driver engaged in some lively conversation that I remember, but I was super knocked out.

After 2 or so hours, and some crazy twisting hairpin turns up this mountain, we made it to Jog Falls. Impresionante. Really beautiful. We were getting rained on a little bit, but that couldn’t take away from the splendor of the falls. Athai said that we came at the right time because, without rain, the falls don’t ‘fall’ as much. Also, apparently people still die with frequency here. Just the other week people had hopped the barriers for selfies, and when they got back, they noticed that someone from the group was missing. Scary stuff.

We were going to stop at one more place but it didn’t make sense. So, we stopped for lunch!

Now, this restaurant looked decent, but the food was amazing! We got two veggie dishes, some butter naan, and some curd. I definitely overate. I ate so much.

I felt so not good on the way home. I tried closing my eyes to make it feel better. Athai even took a nap, which she rarely does.

We wanted to stop at Sunset Point, which was along the road with the crazy hairpin turns, but there was so much fog from the rains that you could not see anything. So we continued on.

We made it back home, and Shruthi told us that they will sometimes put baking soda in the dishes to fill you up, problem is that it expands in your stomach too. Not a pleasant feeling.

So we waited for a BIT before having any food. Due to Chikky’s passing, Prakash (Benji, Shruthi’s husband) came into town. He arrived after Athai and I had left. They said that once he arrived Chinny was just crying to him about everything that happened. We all sat down and sipped on some sizzurp and enjoyed some lively conversation.

 

I had a little bit of these chicken dishes that Athai was preparing and that Benji had brought back from a restaurant. We kept it simple for dinner. We all just kept chatting and, before I knew it, it was 11PM and bed time! Because tomorrow had no plans, it meant that we could sleep in and relax a bit.