And then... the jungle

It's two more days till Jasmin leaves already!!!! The last week and a half has FLOWN by! We've had some animal adventures, not too many though. The cows have left me alone, which is awesome. I'm still wary and cross to the other side when I see one on the road. Self preservation, gut feeling, instinct.. Whatever.

We went to the jungle last week. We got to see tiger cubs, which was ah-mazing! Another jeep spotted them at a water hole and radioed our safari jeep which hurtled through the forest with branches almost hitting our faces to get there. It was such a high to shoot through the forest, in a squeaky jeep, on something that can barely be called a road, with a steep drop on one side and hill on the other. We did make it to the water hole in one piece. Our heads were slightly swollen from all the knocking on metal. I dunno if that was good luck, but it seemed to have worked. I also wore two different socks, after I heard that it was supposed to be good luck from Matthew Gray Gubler. Now I believe it too!

The campsite was such that the electricity was available from 5:30am to 8am and from 6pm to 10:30pm. It's not fun being woken up at 5:30, going to the loo and finding a huge spider staring at you! Now you were also about to sit on it. Start screaming now? That is what Jasmin did! When she came out running and told me this, I mocked her thinking "It's a wee lil spider. Come on." and went in. It was no wee spider. That thing was the size of my palm!!!!! I went out to get my shoe and when I went back, the thing was gone!!! Disappeared! Crazy ass thing! We hunted high and low, found two other tiny spiders (which were quickly done away with) but couldn't find the big one. We shut the door to the loo real tight and went for the morning safari.

Coming back at 8:30am meant that there was no electricity, and also the loo had one tiny window which didn't help with the light as there were huge trees next to the window! Shining the torch, we both went in, holding slippers in out hands. We saw the big thing sitting next to the comode! It seemed to have had a rough few hours, as now it had 5 legs. Four on one side and one on the other. That didn't hinder it's speed as I chased it. I managed to chase it onto a towel which I carefully picked up, cause I didn't want to startle it and get it to run on me, threw the towel outside and it ran away. (I just shuddered while writing this!)

Jasmin opted for a quick wash while I was determined to not let that Thing scare me and get clean. As I was showering, I noticed some movement from the corner of my eye. I turned to look at a frog and a lizard staring at me. Gee, isn't that a pleasant sight? Let's just say, my shower was really quick and I got the hell out of there.

Our next animal adventure was with an elephant. I had gone to this jungle about 3 years ago, where I was chased by a baby elephant (who was decidedly bigger then I was) and wasn't looking forward to meeting him again. He wasn't around when we went to the elephant camp, but there was a magnificent tusker tied to a tree. I love elephants and I think they are really awe-some, in the literal sense of the word, so I convinced Jasmin that it was a good idea to take pictures of this animal. We went up close and started to take pictures. I walked closer, quite confidently. He was tame after all. He turned and looked at me and I grinned at him, thinking oh, he's saying hello or something. Me, the fool, still didn't move when he took a step towards me, but when he took the second and third step, I walked away real quick. I learned later that he wasn't exactly tame :P

Our jungle trip after that was pretty much uneventful. We fed a few monkeys at the nearby temple which was fun, but that's about it. We reached Bangalore at about 3pm and at 6pm we left to go to a friend's house for a well, not a party, but a get-together that's fun.

I don't know how to end this, but yeah. I'll post more later :)