Party People

(5 Jul) As the only representatives from the US at Staff College, Jeff and I felt it was only appropriate to host the first big party of the year for the 4th of July. Unfortunately, the 4th was on a Friday and was obviously not a holiday on the Indian calendar. What to do? Well, it turns out that Canada Day was on the 1st of July, also a school day, so our Canadian friend Steve couldn't celebrate properly either. It only made sense to us that 1st of July + 4th of July = Big Canada Day/Independence Day blowout on the 5th of July. We held the party at Jeff's house and invited all of the foreign officers and some select Indian officers since we didn't think we could host the entire college of 450 officers in the house. Despite our selective invites, we still topped out at about 150 attendees and created havoc throughout Gorkha Hill the entire evening...

Group Photos

Canada and US flag cakes...

Jeff, Alex and Tim...fireworks safety demo

With Rohit, Abhi, and Tushar (all from India)

Me and Chris (Singapore)

Me with Jazna (Chile) and Hilde (UK by way of Germany)

Me and Prashant (India)

Me, Dave and Vanessa (Australia)

Me and Celestine (Nigeria)

Alex (UK), Jose (Chile), Amit (India) and I watch over the grill

A Walk in the Woods

One of things that the Nilgiris have plenty of is beautiful terrain for hiking. In the little bit of time I've been here, I've managed to get in just a bit of hiking in the local area, and there's never any lack of scenery.

View of Gorkha Hill from a neighboring hilltop.

Local village scenes

Dense woods

First hike of the season sponsored by the Staff College: Alex (UK), me,

Chris and Gregory (Singapore), and Ali (Oman)

View of the Staff College

Roadside shrine with requisite free-range cow

Hillside views and tea plantations
...post-hike beers, of course.
And no hike would be complete without a monkey sighting...