Letter 58 Tigers to Tiny Trains.

Index of Letters       Letter 58 Background        Back to Letter 57 Extra Story Six

Forward to Letter 59

                                                                                                                                Shanti  Wilson,

                                                                                                                                New Lynn,
                                                                                                                                West Auckland,
                                                                                                                                New Zealand.
Joseph Kour
The Game Reserve,
Rayalseema,
Andhra Pradesh,
India. 

Hi Joseph & Lizamoa,

            It is good to hear that you now are in the final stages of having your visa granted. Soon you will be making the final arrangements for your move to New Zealand so I think this will be one of the last letters in our series of letters before you arrive here. It will be good to have you both here but I think I am going to miss the letters too.
            Here in New Zealand, we are all doing fine. The baby keeps me occupied a lot of the time and with the work, I am doing too, I am busy most days. That is good because I was worried that being at home all day I would have nothing to do and get bored.

            Mike is also very busy with Peter as they have opened another car yard and they are now importing used cars from Japan. The good side of this new business is now we always have nice cars to drive. 

            Now to the story for this letter. The next stop on our India tour was the Perijar Tiger Reserve. This is a bit out of the way for most tourists but we enjoyed going there.

            Without a doubt, the highlight of our visit was the tiger breeding program. Here they were breeding tigers for later release into the reserve. I understand that this program might have now been dropped due to lack of funding. That is a pity because they were doing some good work with such a rare protected animal.

            One surprise occurred soon after we arrived there. We met the Head Ranger, a good friend of yours Joseph. When we were introduced he recognised me.

            “Ah Shanti,” he said. “You can be leaving your gun here. There are no crocodiles to be shooting here. And don’t be shooting my tigers.”

            “What! How did you know?”

            “In the park service, you are the most famous Shanti. The story was the big feature in the latest newsletter. It will be being told in all the parks and reserves in all over India by now.”

            I turned to Joseph. “Did you do this? Did you put that story in the newsletter?” I asked him angrily.

            “No! No! Shanti, it wasn’t me.” Joseph said holding up his hands and stepping back as if I was about to hit him. “I have been with you all the time. I am still on leave, remember.”

            “Then who did this?”

            “It must be somebody from the Reserve. Maybe it was Rosemary….. I do not know…. I have not even seen it yet.”

            The Head Ranger reached for something on his desk. Taking up a small magazine he handed it to Joseph. “Here is a copy,” he said.

            Joseph held it up and here on the cover was that photo of me sitting on the crocodile’s back while Joseph and Mike stood each side of me. (I must admit that later when I got to read the article I thought it was rather good.)

            “Oh no!” I said in shock looking at the photo he held up. So my new found fame was spreading before me it seemed.

            The boys went off on a short tour out into the park but we girls stayed at the breeding centre. One of the female park workers took us on a special tour of our own.

            “Here,” she said “In this last room there is something very special I will be showing and you will be looking. You must be very quiet and it is not to be saying any word.”

            We went into a very dark room. The only light came from the room next-door. Through the glass, we could see a large tiger lying on her side. It was clear she was sick as she just was laying there.

            “Then the keeper whispered to us. “She is just about to giving birth.”

            We watched for a few minutes and then it began. We heard her make a noise much like a human moan and then a tiny head appeared. We could see this tiny cub being born. While we were watching this cub was followed by another two.

           Just as the third one was being born the boys arrived. Compared to the mother, these cubs were so tiny. It is a surprise that they grow into such large creatures.  I just wanted to reach out and pick one up and cuddle it, they just looked so cute, but of course, we couldn’t, these were wild animals.

            Later in another room, they had two more cubs only a few weeks old which their mother had deserted. They were hand feeding them. We were able to pick these two up and hold them. They were so nice and cuddly. Just like little kittens. They even gave me a bottle of milk so we could feed them.

            Without any doubt, this was one of the best highlights of my time in India. 

            Our tour continued with a plane trip to the other side of South India. Here we stayed in a city called Kochi in the state of Kerala. This city, originally known as Cochin, was a centre of the Indian spice trade for many centuries. Apparently, it was even known by the ancient Greeks and Romans. In more recent times the Portuguese founded the first European settlement in India here. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch and then finally the British. So there is a lot of history here and a lot of things to see. 

        The hotel in Kochi was one of the best we stayed in. And even better, the hotel had a choice of three great swimming pools. Of course, as you can guess, I enjoyed those too.

            One of these pools had a water slide which was fun to try. I was wearing my bikini and went down the slide. As I was going down suddenly I realised my bikini top had come loose. I reached to grab it but this caused me to fall onto my back. Now that I was lying down my speed increased. I couldn’t get back up to a sitting position as my speed continued increasing all the time.

            When I fell back my bikini top had slipped out of my hand and was swept away by the rushing water. I was unsure where it was.  Here I was racing down the slide and I knew that at any moment I would burst out of the end and plunge into the pool, now completely topless.

            I came shooting out of the tube like a rocket. I was still on my back and my momentum caused me to plane across the water before I plunged into the water of the pool. There was a lifeguard on duty there watching and a number of people standing around also watching. They all must have seen my unexpected show.

            Clutching one arm across my naked breasts I stood in the water looking around desperately for my top. But I couldn’t see it anywhere!

            Then the lifeguard came to my rescue when he saw my top on the other side of the pool and fished it out of the water for me. As I stepped up the steps out of the water he handed it to me with a big grin on his face. I took the bikini top from him and I could tell by the look on his face that he had seen everything. There was no doubt he had seen and enjoyed my little show.

            “Thanks,” I said with embarrassment as I took the top with one hand while I still tried covering myself with the other.

            Then a very wicked thought came to me. Taking the top I began putting it back on. Since now both hands were now holding the top I was leaving my breasts totally bare for him to enjoy again. I calmly fixed my top around my body before pulling it up over my breasts and as I made the final adjustments I looked back up giving him a smile.

            As I left the pool I heard Mike’s voice behind me. “There you go again Shanti. You can’t resist giving guys a free show can you?”

            I didn’t know he was there. He must have come down the slide behind me and seen everything.

            “It was an accident,” I protested.

            “Yes, sure it was,” he replied obviously not believing a word I said.

            Then I heard a giggle from Lizamoa. I looked up to see her leaning on the railing beside the pool with a big smile on her face too. It was very obvious she had caught everything as well.

            As I left the pool enclosure she came up and put her arm around me. “Oh Shanti,” she laughed. “That was so sexy to be doing. I think the lifeguard was liking the free showing also. And all the others around were watching and likeing too.”

            Then Mike’s voice behind me, “See I knew you did that on purpose. Can’t you ever behave yourself, Shanti?”

            I tried to explain to them again what really happened, that my bikini top had just come undone, but there is no way either of them would believe that it was actually an accident. 

            From Kochi we travelled inland to where we caught this tiny steam train which took us higher and higher into the mountains. The boys loved this train, particularly Steve. It was an amazing little engine which bravely pulled all those people up that steep hill winding through the steep curves as it went.

            At the first station, the boys went forward to look at the engine and Steve was invited to ride on the engine. Mike said he would have gone too but the cab was so small they only had room for one.

            This took us to the hill station Udhagamandalam (more commonly known as just Ooty). We stayed here a couple of nights. They have some cottages which were used by the British during the hot season. They have tried keeping these in much the same way as when the British used them as a hill station where they would spend the hot summer months each year. 

            It was cooler here, high up in the mountains, especially for the Indians. For us, from New Zealand, it was just like our normal summer. Very nice, but while we were in shorts, the Indians wanted to wrap up warmly. It was rather amusing to see them all wrapped up while we walked around so relaxed in our light summer gear.

          I was expecting Ooty would have been just a tourist centre but I was surprised to discover it was also a market town for agriculture from the surrounding area. Because it is cooler up here they grow "English Vegetables" and "English Fruits" locally. In the market, we saw potatoes, carrots, cabbages and cauliflowers and fruit such as peaches, plums, pears and strawberries. Dairy farming is also an industry here and there is a cooperative dairy factory in Ooty manufacturing cheese and skimmed milk powder.

            During the evening we sat in front of a large open fire enjoying the heat and toasting marsh mellows over the flames. This was a fun thing to do too. It was good to sit around in our group and enjoy the time together.

            We did not do too much sight-seeing in Ooty but they had games such as golf and tennis. We were watching a tennis game played between Joseph and Lizamoa with Sarvesh and Amita.

         After the game when they came off for a drink I told them the game wasn’t as interesting as nude tennis has been.

            “Of course, Shanti,” replied Sarvesh, “But we can’t be playing that here can we?”

            “Pity,” I said. “It would be more fun to watch.”

            They all laughed and I sure they all agreed with me too. 

            While we were in Ooty a couple of interesting things happened. First I noticed that Sarvesh and Jeevan went for a long walk together. I was sitting on the veranda watching them as they walked about the garden and it was obvious they were discussing something very important.

            It was only later that we came to learn that Sarvesh had asked Jeevan to work for him. They are going into business together. The plan is they would employ somebody to run the little shop which Jeevan had and instead Jeevan would import fruit and produce from other parts of India and also from other countries as well.

            The second thing was a sexy adventure we had in Ooty, but this story is yours to tell Joseph and so I must end my letter here. 

            Love from us in New Zealand,

                        Mike, Kathy & Shanti.

Index of Letters       Letter 58 Background        Back to Letter 57 Extra Story Six

Forward to Letter 59